Missions
by L4dy Butt3rf1y
Summary: Hermione has been hardened after the war and has become the top agent in her field. When a mission arrives that puts the secrecy of the Wizarding World at risk, she is forced to partner up with the only other agent who matches her skill. And she is not happy about it.
1. Amateur

It was a freezing cold night. But Hermione hadn't worn too much. Bulky clothing was the last thing she needed when she was trying to keep quiet and out of sight. She'd gotten much better at it over the last few years but it still helped to keep herself as small and invisible as possible. She had gone for the clothes that were almost default to her now, her old worn-out black biker jacket, one of the many plain white t-shirts she had at home, black skinny jeans that were almost as used as her jacket and her sturdy lace up boots. She huffed a piece of hair out of her face again. It was always difficult to keep it under control, but it was vital when on one of her missions. It would not do, for her to be hiding behind a wall or door and be found out because her hair had decided it wanted to be free. It had always bothered her, as well that an enemy could reach out and grab it in the middle of a scuffle but she had not had any issues with that as of yet, and put off cutting it. She didn't quite know how to _describe_ it if she were asked. It was not curly. To say it was curly was to suggest it had some kind of shape. It had innumerable kinks in it that gave it it's annoying volume and she supposed if she ever ended up getting it straight again, she'd gain half a foot in length.

Hermione felt the cold bite into her skin, exposed through the tears in her jeans, but refused to allow herself to shiver. She had to keep still and silent, it was a mercy the two Death Eater loyalists had kept the lights in the room off, otherwise she didn't think she would have been able to hide as well as she had in the large exposed drawing room. Thirty six different empty portraits on the walls _'How many portraits does one drawing room need?',_ seven potted plants, six side tables, three massive elaborately designed rugs, two Rococo armchairs, one large sofa in the same style as the armchairs and a pitifully blubbering new Ministry agent, William on his knees in front of a huge marble fireplace and two amused, sneering Death Eater loyalists. Looking back at the open window as a fresh gust of frigid air cut into her, she saw again the moon hidden behind slow moving grey clouds. She wagered she'd have six minutes before moonlight flooded the room, potentially exposing her. Hermione didn't like potentials.

"P-please..." she heard him sniffle. She rolled her eyes. Hermione pondered again, why she had been the one chosen to escort him on his first mission out of training. She'd been out of training for nearly five years now, and had never had to escort a new agent. She didn't like working with advanced agents, let alone nineteen year olds who it seems forget their training as soon as they leave the confines of the Ministry. She worked better by herself, other people got in her way and always got offended when she shot down their inept plans for infiltration or capture or anything of the sort. She would have scoffed at the cliché she recognised from Muggle buddy cop movies, if it wouldn't have given her away.

She supposed her sympathy and empathy had died away over the years of hard mission and even harder nights. Or maybe that was what she just preferred to think. The catalyst was that night in Malfoy Manor when she was eighteen, tortured by a madwoman. Harry had told her before that same madwoman had informed him the year before that you needed to _feel_ the malice to preform the Cruciatus properly. Well she had certainly felt it that night, when Bellatrix Lestrange was adamant beyond all reason that her vault had been broken into. She had felt so powerless then, surrounded by people who hated her because of something she couldn't change. Her birth. She was sure Bellatrix would have enjoyed her torture if she hadn't been so unhinged. But another opinion of hers had changed that night. Hermione can still remember the look on the Malfoy's faces as they floated above her. Narcissa looked like she would throw up or faint at any moment, Lucius flinched and set his jaw hard every time he heard the spell connect and Draco... well she never saw his face. He kept his back turned to her as much as he could, in between his parents, facing the fireplace. His head hung, shoulders hunched with anxiety and both fists firmly clenched. He didn't move, not when his mother clutched to his arm for support, or his father clamped his hand down on his shoulder, in some kind of silent support he couldn't voice. She realized then that she, Harry and Ron were not the only people trapped in that house.

The sound of another loud sniffle brought her back to where she was. Peeking her eyes back over the couch, she saw the two Death Eater loyalists take their wands out. She readied her own, waiting for William to make a move of his own. He seemed to be frozen on the spot, just staring at the wands as if they had started singing. _'Come on!'_ she thought _'Do something, or they'll kill you, idiot!'_ She wasn't holding back out of complete heartlessness. He had to learn to do things on his own. It wasn't until one of them raised their wand and uttered the first syllable of the killing curse, Hermione let out and audible angry sigh and stunned them both before they had time to turn. She quickly caught and levitated them, so they wouldn't crash to the floor and lowered the two of them gently. She got to her feet, crossed her arms and looked down upon the new starter with a glare she hoped would light a fire under his ass.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" she growled out at him.

"I-I... Oh my god... how long h-have you been there? Why didn't you do anything sooner?!" He screeched at her, his panic and fear getting her better of him. Her scowl at him deepend as a few sparks sputtered out of her wand, a danger sign she hoped he'd recognised.

"Why didn't _you_ do anything sooner? Why did you just sit there like a pig ready for slaughter? Where's your wand? Where are your survival instincts?" she reprimanded, growing more and more frustrated and furious at how he continued to sit there, a sobbing mess. She noted with disgust that he had also wet himself.

"They were going to kill me!" He cried into his hands.

"Yes." She replied shortly. He looked up at her shocked and scared. "Yes they were. And they would have succeeded if you had been on your own. They would have killed you." She was walking slowly toward him now. "They would have burned your body, but probably not without defiling it first. They would have packed up their shit and moved to a different location. They would have taken the file with them and we would be down one more agent and important information because you couldn't handle your shit!" She grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet. She knew she was being harsh, but that was life out here. Being harsh was necessary. Picking a pinch of her personal supply of Ministry Floo Powder out of her pocket, she threw it into the empty hearth. Lime green flames burst to life as she turned to levitate the stunned Death Eaters through the flames. This direct line would send them straight to a Ministry holding cell for them to await further questions. Standard procedure, of course. The flames went out once they were fully through. She turned to look upon nineteen year old William again. "Come on, we're leaving."

"B-but what about the file...?" He asked with trepidation, fearful of the answer. She didn't turn to look at him. "I have it safe."

"You have it?!" He asked in disbelief. "But what about all the guards and the wards an-"

She cut him off, viciously " _I_ am able to preform my job." She snapped. "I'm recommending you for desk duty, you're not fit for this line of work."

"What?! You can't do that! No! My mother was so hap-" He had moved forward and grabbed her by the wrist. She yanked it out of his grip so quickly and with such ferocity he stumbled.

"You don't tell me what to do," she stuffed her hand into the small pouch hanging at her hip and pulled out a broomstick. "You're lucky I don't have you checking wands in and out of security for the rest of your days here, do you understand me?" She finished, letting her angry eyes bore into him as she pulled out a second. He lowered his eyes and she thought he might start crying again. As she held the second broomstick out to him, moonlight flooded through the window. She raised her eyes up to the ceiling, praying for patience. It would be far more difficult getting out of the estate now. The grounds were completely flat, with no tree cover and the moonlight seemed to be lighting it up as if it were the sun. The anti-apparition wards ended at the iron wrought gates ahead of them, but they had to get there first.

"Their friends will be along soon to figure out why they've been gone for so long, and to be honest with you William, I don't really feel like dealing with them right now. I want to go home, drink a lot of Firewhiskey and go to bed. Sound good to you?" She didn't wait for a reply, just straddled her broom and made ready to kick off while she waited for him to do the same. She whipped around as she heard heavy running footfalls coming towards the door. Waving her wand at the door she called "Colloportus!" A second later she heard bodies slamming into the closed door as she and William soared through the open window.

The familiar feeling of fear and dread came over her, as it always did whenever she was forced to fly. While she may have gotten slightly better at it over the years, she still was not a fan. Two jets of light passed close to her, and she swerved out of shock, nearly unseating herself. Still clutching to the broomstick for dear life, she shot a quick and shoddy shield charm behind her and William. They were nearly there, nearly over the barrier, just a little more.

Relief swept over her as she felt the slight vibration of passing through the ward. She descended far too quickly and crashed into the ground hard and heard a second thud behind her. William must have done the same thing. He was supposed to be a better flier than that. _'Idiot.'_ she thought, sucking back in the air that had been forced from her on impact. Adrenaline was coursing through her now, so whatever injuries she sustained, she didn't feel them just yet. William was lying facing away from her.

"William, we're still in danger. Get up." She spoke breathlessly. When he did not move, she grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up as she had a few minutes ago. She was surprised however when his weight was unyielding. He didn't speak. She firmly took hold of his shoulder and turned him to face her.

"William! What-" Her next few words were lost in her throat on the way to her mouth. Eyes looked up at her, but didn't see her. His jaw lay slack, his tongue fell to the back of his throat. There was mud covering the left side of his face, getting in his eye and mouth, but he didn't feel it. He was dead. Her heart paused for a beat then sped up again. She brushed the dirt from his face and tried to close his eyes and his mouth. They would not stay closed. He kept staring at her, grotesquely.

True to her word, she drank an awful lot of Firewhiskey that night, but sleep did not come easily.


	2. Apprehension

_Two Years Later_

Hermione awoke with her heart beating so hard she thought it was trying to break out of her chest. Breathing in deep gulps of air and pushing her hair off of her sweaty forehead she looked around her room. If only just to convince herself she was still there and was safe. She recognised her teal walls, her black curtains, her black rug that was singed in the corner. She remembered, waking up with a start about two years ago when Harry came into her room and she'd nearly set her whole home on fire. Hermione reached over to her bedside locker with a shaky hand and grabbed the jewelled brooch she always kept by her side. An old heirloom from her mother's side of the family, she knew every dent in the metal, every scratch in the sapphires and diamonds and knew exactly how heavy it felt in her palm. She should do, after all, it was all she could dream about, growing up; was one day owning that brooch. She wasn't sure when it had become a way for her to ground herself after a bad night, or even a bad day, as of late, but she almost _needed_ it now.

And today more than most. She wasn't sure what it was, but she felt like today was going to be particularly hard. It was one of those gut feelings that permeates through the skin and flows with the blood. One that's impossible to shake. There was a meeting scheduled for her today, after her training, but that was no reason to dread, she'd been in more meetings recently than she'd been on missions for some reason. Rolling over in bed, to bury her face in her pillow again, Hermione tried to will herself to get up. After a few quick muttered complains to herself, she stumbled out, without grace, the muscles in her legs seizing from lack of use during the night. Standing up straight, she looked into her mirror as she did every morning, looking over her scars and old wounds, reminding herself that she enjoyed her job. Scars were stories, after all. But sometimes she couldn't help get jealous of people with unblemished skin that seemed to never have been touched by misfortune. At the same time though, she would also tell herself, those people can't do what I can do. And it was enough to keep her happy, for the moment. She let her eyes rake over her body, in her t-shirt and underpants she had slept in. The most faded of all the scars was the one Bellatrix Lestrange had left on her with the Cruciatus Curse. Large marks, covering her from right shoulder to right breast, and only just barely creeping up her neck. Fine tendrils of scars, like veins or lightning, so faded and light in colour now they were barely noticeable. A Cruciatus Curse usually doesn't leave a mark, but... Bellatrix had been different. When she had finally caught sight of herself a few days after, she nearly screamed. The lightning like scars had been black as night and had made her look like she had been cursed or poisoned with very dark magic. They had faded eventually, but not quick enough for her, going from black, to grey to what they were now, a slightly off colour pink that could ony be seen in some lights, but she could see all the time. She hated them and loved them all at once. Her hand left her shoulder and trailed down her stomach, where a jagged pink line, bisected her belly button, giving it an odd shape. She then touched the outside of her right thigh where a large burn had healed without magical aid, leaving a lumpy pink and white scar about the size of her hand. These were her three biggest. She had many more besides, but these were the ones that reminded her of who she was, why she had fought for this long and why she was still fighting. Her figure was not what it had been in school either. Back then she had been a little pick of a thing. But now well she wasn't really sure. The only way she could think to describe her figure was 'athletic'. She was not very skinny and she was not bursting with muscle. But she had strong arms, strong legs and a strong core, as long as they could carry her through whatever she had to do in a mission, she was happy.

As Hermione exhaled she blew some of her trademark hair fuzz out of her face and began to begrudgingly get ready for the day. Not for the first time, she felt jealousy course through her for the people in jobs who could call in sick whenever they felt a twinge. That morning was a standard affair, one of routine, one in which she was used to; floo into the Ministry, make her way up to her floors, and train until you felt you couldn't move anymore. As the lift dinged open she found herself silently praying that the training floor was empty. She preferred it that way, less distraction and less observation. But it was rarely the case and unfortunately was not today. However there were fewer people here than she had anticipated. Her department and the Auror department shared this training ground, both for magic and hand to hand combat. It had taken a lot of warring and even more demonstrations to convince the Ministry that in the aftermath of the war, wizards _had_ to be trained in hand to hand. If a wizard or witch was left wandless, they became powerless and had no means of defence. That was no way to run their ministry and Hermione had had disarm and physically incapacitate no less than seven Aurors in different demonstrations for her to be even taken seriously. There was war when the Purebloods found out. The Second War might have been won by the Light, but centuries old prejudices did not disappear overnight. The very idea of fighting hand to hand seemed so barbaric and undignified to them, they refused to see sense for four months. Until six agents died ugly deaths. Disarmed. Helpless. Hermione had never seen Purebloods so humble before in her life, and she hoped she never would again. There was no pride as she had expected. No swell of power or dignity within her. Just cold empathy settling at the bottom of her heart for these once so proud wizards and witches, broken. Driven to such grief and despair by their own inaction, and they knew it. She'd known one or two of the people who had died on the mission. She'd known more of the people who had survived.

"Bit of a late start today, Hermione?" Harry spoke to her as she threw herself down next to him, sitting on the floor, their backs against the walls, watching Ron spar with a mobilized dummy. "It was a late night, Harry. I didn't get much sleep." She watched him tape up his left hand.

"Oh really?" he cocked his eyebrow, his green eyes glittering mischievously behind his glasses. "What's his name, then?"

"Crookshanks." She replied nonchalantly as Harry began to tape up his right hand and snorted.

"Oh yes, well I can see why it would work. He ticks all the boxes, doesn't he? Very loyal, very smart and ginger- ooh... too soon?" He grinned again as she punched him in the arm, a little harder than necessary. She and Ron had had a thing. The whole Wizarding World knew that. But what they didn't know was that they had had a thing twice more after their first break-up. And it just hadn't worked. And it kept not working. So they had left it off. Promised each other that they would leave it, and they'd both move on and be happy. Neither had made much progress.

"If you're not careful Harry, I'll make you shut up." She narrowed her eyes, but there was only teasing in her voice.

"Is that a threat, Hermione?"

"You bet your bloody arse it is."

"Well then... in that case," He tried to sound upset as he said his next words, standing "I'm going to have to kill you."

"I'd like to see you try." They had both stood and made their way onto the training floor, a little away from Ron, who had halted his own training to watch what was about to happen with his arms crossed and a playful smile on his face. Hermione pulled her wand out of her holster at her hip. "Come on then, Boy Who Lived. Hit me with your best shot." She gave the traditional pre-duel salute.

"Alright, Bushy Bookworm. You asked for it." He gave her the salute. It was over in six minutes and forty-three seconds. Hermione was on her knees and Harry was on his back about four foot away from one another. She had won by a hair, but only by a hair. She had just managed to stay upright as she forced Harry to the floor. He'd always been better than her at emotionally driven spells, while she was always better at the logical ones. He had gotten quicker and more skilled over the years, but so had she. She still had the magical advantage over them, which she relished. Even more so as Ron came over, laughing to help Harry to his feet.

She stood facing the two of them. "Hermione Granger, still able to best the great Harry Potter. You're going to have to do better than that, mate."

"Yeah? Well why don't you try then?" Harry replied to Ron, a little pink in the face.

"Magic isn't my strong suit."

"Chicken." Hermione piped up, grinning at him.

"Chicken? You wound me, Hermione. Well I can't turn down a challenge like that. I'll spar with you. But no wands." He smirked. Damn. He wanted to spar hand to hand. And he knew he would win. He had over a foot in height on her and was far stronger. But Hermione was proud. Too proud at times, so her mother used to tell her. She sighed and handed her wand to Harry. As she turned to take her beaten leather jacket off, she could have sworn she caught sight of grey eyes under white blonde hair watching the three of them. But as she looked back, he was in conversation with another wizard. She threw her jacket to the side and took her position across from Ron. Both he and Harry were looking very smug. "Ah shit." She whispered to herself as Ron flew at her. It was over in eighteen seconds. She was lying flat on her stomach, Ron was straddling her hips and had her shoulders pinned with his hands. Her hair was obscuring her face, but she saw that yes, Draco Malfoy was definitely watching them. She couldn't tell what his thoughts were, though. His face was impenetrable. Her pride had taken a hit and she was annoyed it had been in front of him. Other opponents usually underestimated her, allowing her to get the upper hand, but Ron and Harry knew better than that. For the next four hours, she continued to spar with them, she won all her wizard duels against Ron, lost two to Harry, beat him all times except one in physical sparring and lost all of the physical sparring matches to Ron. Malfoy was there the whole time, moving around the room, partaking in different conversations, reading, fighting, but she always caught him glancing back to watch them. At the end of their training, she, Harry and Ron sat on the exact opposite of the room to him, Hermione watching him as closely as she could without getting noticed. He seemed to have changed. A lot. He was taller than when she had last seen him, if that were possible. But perhaps it was just how he was holding himself. His hair was a bit longer and his style seemed to have changed... no matured with him as he grew. She could tell he no longer felt the need to shout about his great wealth or maybe he had learned about humility. Doubtful. Highly doubtful. His face didn't seem as severe as she remembered it in school. She'd passed him in the Ministry a few times, but had never really had the chance to observe him before. He looked less sulky and scowly and... _serious_. He smiled at whatever his company had said to him and Hermione supposed it seemed genuine. Now that he thought of it, she didn't know what his smile looked like. She didn't think she'd ever _seen_ him smile. Only sneer.

She moved her eyes back up to his and her heart stopped with surprise as she found him looking back. They held each others gaze for a heartbeat before their attention was called away by their respective conversations at that moment. "Hmm?" She asked dazedly, turning to look at Harry, who was obviously waiting for an answer to a question she hadn't heard.

"Your appointment? Isn't it in ten minutes?" he was looking at the watch once owned by Ron's uncle, Fabian Prewett which was gifted to him by Molly Weasley on his seventeenth birthday. She had never seen Harry treasure an item like he had that watch.

"Ten minutes?" She jumped up and grabbed her jacket and with some hurried goodbyes, ran out of the room, forcing herself not to look at Malfoy as she approached him or when she passed him out. As she did she could almost swear she felt his eyes on her. She had ten minutes to make it to the other side of the floor, through crowds and in theory, she should make it in time, but she always preferred to be early. And so she was, by three minutes.

"Hermione," she heard her name being called as she knocked and entered. The woman was known as Ms. S and only as Ms. S. She was an enigma of a woman. Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin and according to rumours, a dark past. But all there was to go on were rumours. No one knew anything about her, and she seemed to only ever be seen in this room. As she sat down, Ms. S cleared away the files she was working on, clasped her hands and looked across the desk at her. "I'll just get straight to it. We're partnering you up again. No arguments," she held up her hand as Hermione began to protest. "Partnering up is safer and more time efficient. We know you've had pacing issues in the past with your partners, they can't keep up with you and you refuse to slow down for them, but this mission is too important for you to fail. We've paired you with someone who's just as proficient as you, you might not have the best history but we feel you will work well together."

' _Don't say it._ ' She thought. Almost hoping she could hear her thoughts. ' _Please don't say what I know you're about to say._ ' On some level she must have sensed it because she sighed quickly and gave Hermione a look that said both 'I'm sorry' and 'It's necessary'

The door opened behind her. She did not turn to look at who entered. They sat down next to her and out of the corner of her eye she saw the familiar blonde hair. Closing her eyes, she stubbornly tried to will him out of existence. Opening them again she could see he was still there. _Damn._ But she was nothing if not professional and she did not let it show how disquieted she was feeling.

"Welcome Mr. Malfoy, you are to be partnered with Ms. Granger on your next mission."

He only nodded.


	3. Trepidation

She wasn't exactly sure if she had been expecting it, but she had known something bad had been coming since this morning, and she supposed this was it. She was over the schoolyard bullying and over the blood prejudices she knew he no longer held. But she didn't know him. And it was very difficult to work with someone she didn't know, at least in her experience. She didn't know his instincts, his habits, his methods or if he had any routines. She didn't know if he was a run and shoot type of guy or calculating and stealthy. Based on what she knew of him, she would say he's the stealth type. Good. She preferred stealth, but wasn't afraid of getting her hands dirty if it was called for. As long as he didn't aggravate her and followed her lead, everything would work out fine.

"Before I brief you on your mission, we will be sending you on... a test run of sorts. It's not usual to do this as I'm sure the two of you know well. As I said, the mission you two have been paired for is too important for failure. The International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy relies on it. I trust you two not to take that lightly."

Hermione and Malfoy did not respond, nor did they look at each other.

"This will be to ensure you can work well together. You two have very similar styles in how you like to operate. You may have some control issues, though. You both like to be in charge. You both like to make the plans and you both like your orders to be followed without back-talk."

Hermione nearly glanced over to catch his gaze, but stopped herself. She thought he might have just done the same.

"Now, about this test run..."

* * *

Harry and Ron found Hermione waging war on some poor enchanted dummy that didn't stand a chance against her frustrations. She wasn't sure how long she'd been there. "Merlin, Hermione what did the poor sod do to you?" She swerved, panting, her hair sticking to her sweat covered head and neck, her arms felt like lead and her legs were shaking. She reckoned if she pushed herself she could go for about another half hour before something gave out. Ron eyed her with slight concern. "Are you alright?"

Hermione shook her head but said to him, still out of breath, trying to push her hair out of her face "I'm fine, Ron. I'm fine. What're you still doing here?"

"I was trying to find you. Are you still coming to Harry's tonight?"

"For drinks? Oh yes. I need something strong after today." He helped her in her attempt to put the struggling dummy back into its storage, they were both shoving and pushing it from the front. She wasn't sure why they had been enchanted to always be in fight mode, but it made storage quite difficult. Ron's body was almost eclipsing hers as he stood behind her. She could feel his chest and his hips against her back and it sent her heart and loins into spasms. Just because they had decided not to continue on with their relationship did not mean the sexual attraction was not still there and she knew they were both acutely aware of it. He lingered a little too long before eventually pulling himself away. She could see his elevated pulse in his neck.

"Was the meeting that bad?" He touched her shoulder.

She sighed. "It was and it wasn't. I'm leaving on a short mission in a few days so this'll be a good time to relax beforehand. I'll tell you more about it when I get there, okay?" She squeezed the fingers of the hand on her shoulder and brushed past him. She needed a shower, she needed to change and she really needed to do something about these... sensations that were bubbling up inside her. And before she saw Ron again. Otherwise who knew what might happen.

Two hours later she apparated into the hallway of 12 Grimmauld Place. She felt no need to introduce herself or ask permission to enter. The wards let her through, as they always had. Making her way to the kitchen, she poured herself a sizeable drink of Mutata in Umbra, a colour changing spirit.

Harry was still working on renovating the house, trying to remove the doom and gloom feeling the place had hanging about it. The biggest change so far was the removal of all the drab drapery covering all the windows, which had made it far brighter. Making her way out of the kitchen and down the hallway, she opened the door to the lounge where she heard Harry and Ron talking and laughing uproariously. They greeted her when she entered and she immediately felt herself relaxing from the stress of the day. The mere presence of them helped her in more ways they could know. She sat down across from them, stretching out on the couch and sipping her drink.

"No, but do you _remember_ it though? You got to sit around moping. _I_ had to dance at the bloody thing. AND I didn't exactly a lot of notice that I would be doing that." Harry said while laughing.

"But you're The Boy Who Lived, Harry. Surely you could do anything! Except dance at a ball apparently!" Ron burst out laughing, his face pink. Hermione knew instantly what they were talking about.

"Don't talk to me about the Yule Ball, guys." Hermione smiled, knocking back her drink from her glass she had bewitched to keep refilling. She knew it would end up being a terrible decision by the end of the night, but at the moment she didn't care. She needed to allow her control of everything to go, once in a while, and the occasional drink with her best of friends was always a welcome opportunity.

"Why shouldn't we talk about the Yule Ball, Hermione?" Harry said teasingly, his eyes slightly unfocused behind his glasses due to his own drink. "Should we also not bring up Viktor?"

"Oh Viktor, oh Viktor!" Ron mocked good-naturedly, acting lovestruck "I love how you can't pronounce my name! Oh Viktor, talk to me again all about Quidditch!"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, maybe we _should_ talk about Viktor. I don't think I was the one most enamoured with him, if I am perfectly honest."

"You know, Ron, that's very true." Ron rolled his eyes at the remark but didn't respond, instead finishing his own drink and refilling it. She followed suit and finished off her second glass. Harry raised his eyebrow at her.

"Take it easy, Hermione, we have all night."

"I've had a day."

"Yeah, Ron told me you got a new assignment?"

"Mmm-Hmm," she swirled her drink in the glass. "I have a new partner too."

"Really? Who is it this time?"

"You'll never guess," she said, downing it. "There's this assignment and _then_ there's a second one which is apparently of extreme importance so Merlin knows that won't be stressful." She said sarcastically.

"Sounds... fun."

"Yeah. We've got a 'test' mission to go on first, to make sure we don't fuck up the more important one. Only a small one, mainly to see if we work as well together as the theory says we would. We have to go to Gibraltar and stop a small faction of Death Eaters who've set up shop there. They're slowly gaining more power."

"Doesn't sound too bad. You might be a bit of a control freak, Hermione, but an easy mission could probably help getting to know-"

"Malfoy." She cut Ron off.

"What...?"

"My new partner is Draco Malfoy."

"Oh..." Harry seemed at a loss for something else to say, as she nodded, finishing off whatever number drink she was on now."Well... Ron and I have worked with him once or twice. He's not as bad as he used to be. I mean don't get me wrong he's still a self righteous prick, but he's not as..." Harry seemed to be struggling to find the word.

"Cowardly?" Hermione interjected.

"Well I suppose, yeah, you could say that. But Hermione, about that." Harry eyed Ron and Ron looked back. "Don't call Malfoy a coward to his face."

"What? Why would I do that, it'd be a little rude, don't you think?"

"Yes, well, the thing is..." Harry seemed to be struggling on how to say it. "Sometimes you can be a bit... rude. When you're angry I mean. And please don't take that the wrong way, but..." Hermione nodded for him to continue, but Ron interjected.

"Malfoy can't stand being called a coward. A Death Eater called him one, on one of the missions we were on together and he nearly ripped the guys head off. Harry and I had to hold him back."

"Really?" She was surprised. "Why?"

They shrugged. "We don't know. I suppose he's spent so long trying to get away from that side of his past, it just riles him up whenever he hears it." Harry finished. "Anyway, why didn't you just refuse him as a partner? You've done it before."

"I told you, this is different. Ms. S told us the Statute of Secrecy could be in danger."

"Yeah, well it's been in danger before, hell it was almost broken when Voldemort was around, and the Ministry even managed to clean that up."

She sighed. She could feel herself getting quite drunk now. It was fine though, she thought to herself. It would be best to get her emotions about this particular mission out now, so nothing would cloud her judgement later on. She could feel the effects of the alcohol in her gums and her cheeks, the tips of her fingers were tingling and her head was pleasantly buzzing. "They're running a slave trafficking ring. A Muggle trafficking ring."


	4. Mistakes

She felt Ron and Harry's eyes bore into her. She stared at her own drink, not really wanting to look at them at that moment in time. Finally Harry asked the awkward question everyone wanted to know the answer to, but really didn't want to hear.

"Is it just regular slave trading? ...Or is it...?"

"Sex trafficking? Yeah. It is."

"That's fucked up." Ron said, running his hands through his hair. "But like... don't these kind of Purebloods hate Muggles? I don't get it..."

"People tend to have some kind of morbid fascination with what they hate. And they often keep it secret. It's... unpleasant to hear about. But lucky me, I get to experience it. Which is why, I was so thankful for the invitation to come over today." She smiled at them and drank again. She was aware at this point, she was the drunkest one in the room, but that did not by any means mean the other two weren't close behind her. Attempting to remove the awkward feeling that had descended upon the room, she tried to change the subject to Ginny or Quidditch or anything else. As the conversation progressed on the topic of Ginny and how she'd been doing recently, Harry began to tug on his hair and touch his glasses, the tell-tale signs he was worrying about something.

Hermione took Harrys wrist and pulled his hand away from his hair before he gave himself a bald spot. "What's wrong, Harry? What's going on?"

"What?" Harry laughed forcibly, not hiding his nerves at all. "Nothing's wrong. I'm fine. Everything's fine. You were saying about her sponsorship deal?"

"You know about her sponsorship deal, Harry, you live with her." Ron commented.

"Right. Of course. Well... I did want to tell the two of you tonight, only I got distracted and then the mission and I forgot and it's not like I'm scared of it, of course, only I was worried about telling you two now that Hermione is going away and-"

"Harry, Harry, calm down, you're babbling. Is it serious? Are you in trouble?"

"No."

"Are you sick?"

"No."

"Is it anything bad at all?"

"No! No, it's something you'll be happy about! At least I hope you would be, I mean my parents are dead, Sirius is dead, Lupin is dead, I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it to find out how wizards do these things, you know?"

"Harry, please calm down and tell us what you're talking about. You're not making any sense." Hermione was slightly worried the alcohol was causing him to panic unnecessarily over whatever it was, and suspected he wouldn't be babbling as much if he were sober. Harry took a few deep breaths and in one quick breath "I want to ask Ginny to marry me."

"Oh." Hermione said, before she had properly processed what she had heard. Then it hit her. "Wait... what? Oh Harry that's wonderful news, it's not something to be so nervous about, right Ron?" She turned to look at Ron as she hugged Harry, and for the first time in a very long time, could not tell what he was thinking. After a long pause he said quietly. "You want to marry Ginny?"

Harry hesitated looking uncertain. "Yes..."

"So then... you would be family. We would be brothers."

Hermione felt her heart expand as though it would burst through her chest and almost tackled the two of them down to the couch in a hug.

* * *

A few hours later, after Hermione and Ron had finished interrogating Harry for details on what he was planning to do and the evening had wound down, she was watching Harry and Ron play wizard chess.

The chess pieces were constantly looking angry and annoyed and the illogical moves their masters were using and extremely surprised any time an obvious vulnerability hadn't been exploited. It ended in Harry and Ron completely throwing all the rules out of the window and seemingly making up their own to account for their illegal moves.

As they were playing, Hermione found herself watching Ron. His hair was extremely messy in his drunken state and he was growing out some stubble at the moment, having forgotten to shave. Every time he made a move, she could see his athlete's muscles move underneath his shirt. Damn it. She knew alcohol made her horny. But to be honest right now, she didn't really care. She was way beyond buzzed at this point and a part of her told her she should definitely stop, otherwise she'd end up throwing up and she wasn't sure she would find a toilet if she did. She considered using magic to stop her drink refilling itself but knew it was an extremely unwise thing to do to use magic while pissed. She got up and exited the room to bring her glass to the kitchen. Glancing back, she noticed Ron, eyeing her up as she did. She smirked to herself. The love might be slowly fading but there was still that sexual tension. Amplified by the alcohol of course. She spent a lot longer than she usually would have putting her enchanted glass in a safe space so she could deal with it in the morning and getting another to fill with water. She stood in front of the sink and drank from the glass and refilled it a couple of times before walking back to the lounge. When she entered, Harry had gone and Ron was putting the chess board away, fumbling with the pieces and his eyes unfocused.

"He went to bed." He answered her unasked question. And he stood up straight.

"Oh." He was closer now. She looked up at him.

"We should probably go too..." He trailed off. He looked down at her lips.

"Yeah." She turned her head away and walked toward the door. She refused to allow herself to look back at him.

They made their way upstairs as quietly as they could, which was actually much, much louder than they thought, considering Hermione tripped and Ron stubbed his toe. It was lucky Harry's room was on the floor above. By the time they got to their separate rooms, they were giggling and shushing each other making absolutely no difference to their noise level. They both stood in front of their respective bedroom doors, and suddenly she found herself much closer to Ron than she had expected. She looked up at him again. And then without realising she had done it, she was kissing him. Passionately. And without remorse. She was suddenly straddling him on his bed. She had no recollection of how they had gotten from the door into his room and onto his bed, telling her she was just as drunk as she thought she was.

A tiny voice in the back of her head told her that this was a really, _really_ bad idea. They were getting over their feelings, it would add an unnecessary complication to their relationship and yet she couldn't help but ignore it. She was drunk, right? People did stupid shit when they were drunk. Why couldn't she be stupid and impulsive for once? Even in her current state she knew it was a very weak excuse. She knew she was aware of what was happening on some level and whatever part of her brain still held logical reason was telling her it would ruin what they had worked toward for so long.

She felt his hands run up her body and he pushed himself up against her.

 _"Fuck it."_

She broke contact to lift his shirt up over his head and he made quick work of her top and bra too. He'd always been good at that. She bent down to kiss him again as she slowly moved back and forth against him. She could feel herself panting heavily and could feel him do the same as he ran kisses down her neck. He made his way down to her breasts and she gasped as his mouth made contact. She swung her leg away from him and pulled the last of her underwear off under her skirt. She shoved his pants and boxers down just far enough and mounted him again. She rubbed herself along him and smirked as he made an impatient noise. He hated to be teased. She wanted to tease him for longer, but if she was honest with herself, she was just as impatient. She lifted herself up and then slowly set herself down around him. His breathing became more ragged as she continued to move slowly on top of him. He dipped his head again to kiss her breasts and she moaned, more loudly than she had intended to. She started to move a little faster but apparently it wasn't fast enough as she felt him hold fast to her and start thrusting up into her with a fervent speed. She kissed him hard as he got more forceful. It hurt, but it was a good kind of pain, the kind of pain she liked, and he knew it well. She could feel herself getting closer and could tell he was approaching too. She ground against him as hard as she could, and as it hit, she held him tightly, digging her nails into his back, moaning as she did. He continued on, faster and harder until he came a few seconds later, panting hard as he did so.

After a few more seconds of sitting where they were, she moved herself off of him completely. They lifted up the covers and fell into bed together. As she lay there she could feel drunken sleep coming up on her. A snore beside her told her it had already taken Ron. She closed her eyes and hoped it would come upon her soon.

* * *

There was a pounding in her head. Damn. At least she had her hangover potion waiting for her. She opened her eyes to the dim room. She wasn't at home. Had she not gone home last night? Why did she only have her skirt on? She recognised immediately she was at Grimmauld Place but her heart hitched when she realised she was not in her usual room there. She slowly turned to see the back of a ginger haired head next to her. Realisation dawned on what had happened.

"Shite..." She whispered to herself.


	5. Regrets

She knew Ron would be unconscious for another while yet. He slept like a rock, so she made no effort to be quiet as she picked up her clothes and made her way downstairs. She found Harry sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of tea in front of him and his head in his hands.

"How's the head?" She asked as she made herself her own tea. He just moaned in return.

"Do you have to go to work today?"

"Not until later. Ron and I have paperwork to catch up on. That's all we need to do today." He looked up at her. She could tell from the look on his face it was quite obvious to him what had transpired last night between her and Ron. She threw herself down in a chair across from him. "It- it was a mistake. A stupid drunken mistake. I can't believe I allowed myself to do that."

"Well I can tell you he'll probably feel the same, if it's any consolation?"

"I know, yeah I know. And we'd made so much progress over the last few months too! Oh Merlin..." She sighed. Her head was pounding, her limbs felt weak and all she wanted to do was crawl into her own bed with her Hangover Potion and ignore everything in the outside world forever. She wasn't the kind of person who allowed herself to do that normally but she felt like today if any day was an exception.

"Listen, I'm going to head away, I hope you don't mind, but I'll be honest, I want to be gone by the time Ron gets up and my bed is calling me."

"I get it, Hermione. Don't worry. I'll talk to him when he comes down, okay?"

She smiled, hugged him goodbye and kissed his cheek. She flooed out rather than disapparating. She didn't think her stomach could handle it at the moment. Granted, flooing didn't do much better and she quickly made her way to the bathroom after she arrived home, just to be safe.

She was now starting to fully realise the magnitude of what had happened last night. Oh crap. Four months. _Four months_ they had been slowly getting back to where they had been before all of this. _Four months_ they had slowly been putting in the effort so things would stop being awkward and Harry wouldn't be torn between his two friends anymore.

Now they had both gone and bolloxed it up because they'd been a bit too drunk and a bit too horny. She knocked back her vile tasting Hangover Potion as she thought of this, changed into her comfy fluffy pyjamas and made her way to her bed as she waited for it to take away her aches and discomfort. Maybe she would be able to get a few hours sleep in and when she awoke she'd feel fresh and new and everything perhaps wouldn't feel so gloomy.

After an hour or so, her hangover was completely gone but she had not yet gained any of the sleep she was now craving. Her eyes felt heavy and dry and the tiredness she felt in her body was as if her blood had been drained. Her brain, however was buzzing. It would not let her sleep. She kept trying to remember what she could of their encounter and imagining all the horrible ways it could affect her and her friendships. She knew logically that most of these fears would never come to pass. Her mind was creating ugly personalities to fit her friends and she could not help her mind preying on her fears that she would be left alone. Eventually she was able to enter into a restless sleep that had just as much to do with her physical discomfort as it did her mental discomfort.

She awoke a few hours later as the bracelet around her wrist grew warm. A few years back, as they had finished Hogwarts and started their own individual lives, they needed a way to keep in contact. Muggles had mobile phones, she knew but wizards had almost nothing to compare by. The quickest way to get in contact with each other was by owl or floo and they were cumbersome at the best of times. So taking inspiration from her own invention of the coins for Dumbledore's Army, she had enchanted a simple silver bracelet for each of the three of them to use to send very short messages to each other. Ron had been amazed and insisted she inform George at once, he could distribute them as a revolutionary way to send secret messages in school. He had exclaimed over and over again that she would be rich for years to come and how could she pass up on an opportunity like that? It wasn't a terrible idea, she had admitted, but had not told Harry or Ron the real reason she didn't want to publicize this; she wanted to have something solely between her and her best friends. It might sound greedy and childish, but she didn't care. It was hers to do as she liked.

She looked down groggily at the bracelet as it said _'HP: I'm on the way over.'_ She responded, accepting, but didn't remove herself from bed. She heard Harry apparate into the house and he knocked on her bedroom door.

"Come in." Harry entered. He looked far better than she supposed she did, however, he had not had as much to drink as she had, and at the moment she was jealous of his better judgement. He sat lazily on the end of her bed.

"I've spoken to Ron. He's just as... regretful as you are."

"Well that's good to know, I suppose. Doesn't mean it'll be any less awkward, though. I'll be honest, I didn't expect him to immediately assume that everything would be back to the way it was before. Where is he now?" Hermione asked a little nervously. She'd half expected Harry to bring Ron with him to force the conflict out now.

"He's at the Ministry. He has a lot more catching up to do than I do, so I can head back in a bit later." He paused. "I saw Malfoy while I was there." He was trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably.

"Oh? How interesting." She said sarcastically, smiling as she did so.

"Well you know he's your partner now, so I thought you'd be interested to know."

"Not particularly. We're not going to start sitting around doing each others hair, you know. I can't imagine what was going through their minds when they assigned us together. Yes we might work well together on paper, but you'd need to have been living under a rock all this time to not know our history."

"Yeah, but he's changed a lot in the last few years and so have you. You're not the same people you were in school. I mean you used crack under the slightest bit of pressure and over think everything. You'd be better with a book than any kind of action. And now, well, pressure is your job. But you do still over think things. And you're still damn handy with a book."

"You flatter me, Harry. From what I've heard around the Ministry, people don't seem to have the same opinion of me that you do." Hermione picked at a thread on her pyjamas, attempting to appear nonchalant.

"I don't know what you mean." Harry was always such a terrible liar.

"Harry," Hermione folded her arms. "I know what they say about me. And I know what your 'fan club' says about me too." Hermione used her fingers to illustrate air quotes around 'fan club'. There was a group of young Ministry workers who always seemed to be assigned to jobs in whatever area Harry was working on on that particular day. They almost never interacted with him, just watched him from afar, occasionally 'bumping' into him. And they did not like herself or Ron. Hermione had been the subject of some shoddy rumours that were pulled apart by anyone with half a brain cell, and she often overheard them talking loudly about her reputation as a 'Grade A Arsehole with a Lone-Wolf-Complex'. They also seemed to believe that she and Ron were bringing down Harry's full potential and not allowing him to succeed as much as they would have allowed him to, had they been his friends or lovers. Hermione felt they daydreamed too much for Ministry workers, entry level or not. Ginny had managed to avoid their 'wrath' so far, only because she and Harry were quite a private couple. "What do you think they're going to say when you propose to Ginny?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm not worried. They're more like nuisance flies, than hornets, you know? Ginny can handle herself."

"Anyway, I know everyone says I've turned into a bit of a bitch in recent years. And on some level, I know I have as well, but I just find it hard to deal with people who are so under-prepared and so unprofessional."

Harry lay down on his back across the foot of her bed and stretched out. "You shouldn't have that problem with Malfoy, though. He goes by the book."

"Yeah, but I don't particularly like working with those people either. I used to be one of them and it cost me a lot. They're not prepared to deviate even when it's necessary." Hermione crawled out from her duvet and lay on her stomach next to him. Harry scrunched up his face and exhaled to try and move some of her frizzy hair that had landed across his nose and mouth. She pulled her hair around to the opposite shoulder and out of his face. He itched where the hair had touched his skin. "Hermione if this mission is as dangerous and important as you say it is, you're going to have to communicate with him, he's not a mind reader."

"He's an accomplished Legilimens."

"That's not what I mean and you know it."

"Since when are you on Malfoy's side anyway? You always used to assume the worse of him, even in school you were convinced he was opening the Chamber, you were convinced he was a Death Eater-"

"And I was right."

"Yes he was a Death Eater. But not exactly willingly. He was an ass in school. An entitled prick who always thought himself better than me, than us, in every way possible."

"I've worked with him since. Seen him in certain situations where I thought he would react one way and reacted in a totally different way. Plus you know I stopped thinking of him as a self-entitled 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' Dark Lord lover that night on the Astronomy Tower." Harry looked at her with his bottle green eyes and she looked at him with her amber ones, their noses nearly touching.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, Harry. I'll try to communicate with him, and I promise I won't kill him. That much."

"You won't kill him _that much_? That doesn't even make sense, Hermione."

"Shut up." She smiled as she poked him in the stomach.


	6. Liability

After Harry had left, Hermione tried to get as much rest and recuperation in before the mission was to begin. But her mind would not let her. It was a stupid decision to get drunk, it was a stupid decision to sleep with Ron and it was a stupid decision to waste one of her valuable days of freedom before a few hard days work to was to begin on getting over the physical symptoms of a hangover. Was she or was she not supposed to be a professional? Was she or was she not supposed to be wholly in control of herself? She kept asking herself again and again how she could have possibly allowed herself to slip to such an extent? That same small annoying voice that she couldn't shut up said to her _"You're human."_

She raised her eyes up in frustration at herself. "Whatever." She said out loud.

The next day she was feeling one hundred percent again and decided to floo herself to the ministry to get some light training and some research in before she went home early to get as much sleep as possible before she had to leave. She found herself in the research library of the Ministry in the afternoon and picked up as many books and papers she could find on Geneva and brought them back to her spot in the library. She knew she hadn't been able to find everything available. Some of the volumes had been checked out previously and she was pretty sure she knew who by.

She didn't notice the time pass or Malfoy walk straight by her to put the volumes she had wanted back. She did notice, however, when he was leaving. He had walked, unconsciously she supposed, closer to her desk on his way out, and when she looked up to see the back of his head move away from her and as he exited, she also noticed it had gotten very dark outside. They might be underground, and the enchanted windows might falsify the weather so it wasn't constantly raining as it usually did in England, it still kept track of the day and night schedule.

Oh her way back to her home, she thought about Malfoy and how difficult it would be to work together with him. They'd never worked together. They had not had any kind of interaction in the last number of years apart from moving out of the way if one of them needed to step into the lift or something similar. She supposed she could handle being civil to him. It wasn't as if all the things that had effected her in their past bothered her too much anymore. She had grown accustomed to the insults and slaggings during the war and even being tortured in his house was a distant memory to her and while she still had some scars left over from it, she had learned to deal with the mental trauma. Plus, it's not like it was the last time she'd had the curse used on her. She'd been in some pretty tight fixes in the past and had suffered through many different forms of torture and escaped many more other forms rightfully deserving of castration. Oh well. You didn't get to her career status without getting injured. She should also, in theory at least, have her own room permanently booked out in St. Mungo's.

She recalled with a pursing of her lips, the last time she had been in there a few weeks ago. She had just come back from a solo mission in Ireland when an old classmate of hers, Seamus Finnigan had alerted the British Ministry that some of their Death Eaters had been trying to start up again. What they hadn't known at the time is that the Death Eaters had had the aid of some wayward Kelpie's.

* * *

 _She had brushed Seamus off when he offered her aid in capturing the Death Eaters and been staying hidden behind the door of the Death Eaters dining room in their house she had managed to infiltrate. It had been too easy she had thought, she had accounted for every human in the building and each House Elf too, just to be sure. All the humans in the dining room. All the House Elves in the kitchens. She had made another stupid decision that day and had left her guard down. She had not scanned for other magical creatures, she had not even considered that there would be any of those around. She had felt her wand knocked for her hand and then she was in the grasp of a fair haired, freckled, curiously dark eyed and extremely handsome man. Hermione used all of the force available to her to try and break free from his clutches but he was uncommonly strong. All of the wandless defensive spells she had tried to use were bouncing off._

 _He dragged her into the dining room, as she fought viciously to free herself. The man did not even look like he was struggling to hold her. The four Death Eaters looked up, extremely surprised at her presence. She noted it was odd to find Death Eaters in a well lit room, not dressed in black hooded robes and masks, instead wearing regular wizard robes. "Too obvious" she thought as she kicked and scratched at the impenetrable man holding her. "They'd stick out like a sore thumb."_

 _"Found her hiding outside the door." The dark eyed man said, the 's' sounds he made, whistling through his teeth at a pitch that made Hermione's ears hurt. The man at the end of the table stood and walked over to her and looked her dead in the eye. She did not recognise him. "Mudblood Granger." He smirked._

 _She spat in his face. He calmly removed a handkerchief from inside his robes and wiped it off, before placing it back. The smirk was gone, replaced with calm. He swung his arm back and punched her across the face, so hard the skin on her cheek ripped painfully. Her eye was going to swell and she wasn't sure if her socket was intact. But she did not let him see her pain. She turned her head and stared defiantly at him. "Get rid of her." He said, looking at the dark eyed man. "Use your own methods if you have to, just make sure she doesn't bother us again."_

 _The man complied and carried her out of the back entrance and again, didn't seem to have an issues carrying her with ease even though she was doing everything she could to remove his grasp. He was oddly strong, that much was obvious, Hermione thought, trying to figure out who or what this person was to overcome him._

 _Uncommonly strong. Skin not solid. But cold. Very, very cold. Dark eyes... very dark eyes. Hair... wet? Odd. She looked around to where he was taking her. There was a small pond at the back of the residence. They were not very far from it. Water. A water creature. Okay. Ireland. They were in Ireland. A water creature native to Ireland, humanoid in shape, very strong._

 _They had reached edge of the pond and he began to step in, his grip on her never slackening. The cold water was a shock to her system and it momentarily derailed her train of thought. Her breathing started seizing, she was now up to her stomach. She noted the cold water did not effect this man in any way. She recalled some water creatures could take the form of humans. Shapeshifters. She took a large deep breath as her head was pulled under and refused to allow herself to panic. She could get out of this. She just had to find the right spell to effect him._

 _She looked down in the surprisingly clear water to find it was not terribly deep, but still deep enough for her to drown. About 8 foot or so. Focus Hermione! A shapeshifting water creature, native to Ireland, strong, dark eyes, handsome. Extremely handsome... this one thought stuck out to her. Why would this creature need to appear handsome? They usually didn't. Her lungs were starting to protest, wanting to release the air in them to suck in more. Her brain would not hold out much longer after that._

 _A lure! His appearance was a lure, to attract women so he could do to them what he was about to do to Hermione; drown them. Against her will, her lungs let the air out of them and she focused all her energy on stopping them from taking in any water. It felt like her ribs were collapsing in on her. And she could swear she could almost feel the lack of oxygen make it's way to her brain. Think Hermione. C'mon! THINK!_

 _Kelpie! It fit. It fit perfectly. Focusing all the will she had she turned her head to face her captor and nearly lost her nerve. His face was no longer handsome and freckled, his eyes were still dark but his face was deforming in the water until it it looked almost like a horse. This realisation snapped her back to reality and the fact she couldn't keep her lungs closed for much longer. She wandlessly transfigured a long strand of pond weed to a bridle and used a Placement Charm to put it on the Kelpie. As soon as this was done she lost control and inhaled some water. She had not felt pain on this level in her lungs since Bellatrix. She barely even registered that the Kelpie's arms had now let her go and they were floating harmlessly on either side of her. She kicked and struggled to get to the surface of the water, but her shoes and travel cloak were dragging her down. She had just enough sense left in her to try the Ascendio Charm wandlessly again, but it had little effect, only propelling her up so she was still a foot or so under water._

 _She reached her hand up, her fingertips only exiting, feeling the cold air she so desperately craved. She was in so much pain. Blackness dodged the edge of her eyes, and she felt them grow heavy. She began to sink._

 _She felt a hand take hold of her wrist and drag her forcefully from the depths and she slammed hard onto the muddy ground. She retched up the water trapped in her lungs and her stomach before taking a heaving gulp of cold, sharp air that almost stung worse than the water had. With blurry eyes, marred with the pond water they had just been surrounded by, she could just about make out the shape of Seamus, two wands in hand. He took hold of her arm again and apparated them away._

* * *

He had landed them in St. Mungo's after that, where she couldn't exactly remember what happened after that. She could remember being moved and shoved around on a stretcher before being surrounded by Healers while moving in and out of conciousness.

Harry and Ron had not been happy with her. She had learned from her mistakes though. She she would be damned if she ever had to rely on Malfoy the way she had to with Seamus when he had followed her with other Irish Aurors to make the arrests. Partners or not partners. She wouldn't embarrass herself like that again.


	7. Partners

**_A/N: I apologise for my delay in updating. You know how life is. Here's a gift in the form of another chapter. Thank you for your patience._**

 ** _Also, I'm still quite unsure about my story telling abilities, going into extraneous detail or not keeping in a character I have set for someone, you know. That kind of thing. Any feedback welcome._**

* * *

 _"Oh joy,"_ she thought _"Here we go."_ As she saw Malfoy approaching her. They were to meet up in the Ministry then take the International Floo Line to Marbella, Spain where they would then travel via Muggle transportation into Gibraltar. He came to stand beside her.

"Hello." he said, seemingly calm. She didn't know what she was expecting. _'Morning Mudblood. Have to spend the next while with your dirty blood.'_ Or a stony, haughty demeanour. But she got neither. Just mild indifference. "Hello." She responded, just as indifferent. She didn't feel angry or scared next to him. She didn't really feel anything toward him. She was no idiot, she saw his reluctance during the war, and in Malfoy Manor, even to identify them when Bellatrix was throwing a fit.

 _Draco Malfoy had been removed from the room when it had started, taking two other Death Eaters out to the back garden and leaving their unconscious bodies there. He had come back in when there was a pause in her screams and Bellatrix's shouting, clearly hoping it was over and that she was either dead or unconscious. She had looked up at him, lying on the floor in a heap, her limbs heavy and unmoving as she had been thrown down forcefully. Her eyes full of tears of pain and her breathing ragged and shallow._

 _They made eye contact and he visibly grimaced and quickly looked away as he made his way back over to stand next to his parents who also looked less than satisfied. Her line of sight was broken when Bellatrix moved back in front of her and started howling at her again. When the Cruciatus Curse hit her body this time, she was sure she was too weak to convulse and seize, but she was proved wrong when she screamed as though her throat would rip open._

 _The pain stopped. Her head was laying on it's side in exhaustion and she had full view of the Malfoy Family. His parents looked down upon her, she did not try to plead to them with her eyes. They were just as trapped as she was. Draco had his back turned, he was facing the fireplace, his posture tense. She could barely pay attention to anything anymore, so she did not hear the next question that was barked at her or hear the incantation. But just as before, she felt the pain hit her and her body distorted on the floor as she screamed like the fires of hell were surrounding her. She did see his reaction though. At the sound of her scream he jumped, his arms held firmly at his sides, fists clenched, his knuckles white. His head was bowed and his shoulders were so tensed she could almost not see his neck. He did not move for as long as he could. Only when Harry and Ron came for her did his posture change._

She didn't let this memory show on her face. She just began walking toward the Floo Lines. She musn't have been paying much attention to where she was going because she managed to clumsily knock into someone. She looked up.

Ron.

Malfoy had continued walking, not expecting her to stop. A couple of feet away, she noticed him look back. Her eyes were drawn back to Ron as he spoke. "Um... Hermione," he began,"I... I'm not sure how to say this... Um... Harry told me I should see you..."

"It's okay, Ron. I already spoke to him. He told me you didn't want a misunderstanding of feelings and neither do I." She really did not like the idea of having this conversation within earshot of Malfoy, but he didn't seem to respond to anything, politely pretending he was not listening. "We're not going back to where we were, we're not starting again, it wouldn't work, we know it wouldn't." Ron sighed, seemingly both relieved and offended at her bluntness.

"Okay... well, I suppose I'll let you on your way then," he said, glancing back at Malfoy. He began to walk away, but before he could Hermione pulled him into a friendly hug. "Let's not try to be awkward." She smiled. "I'll talk to you again when I get back." He nodded and smiled back.

* * *

Arriving in Marbella, Hermione used her Muggle money in cash to buy a cheap car to make the journey in. Untraceable to both Muggles and Death Eaters. Malfoy eyed up the car suspiciously. "I would assume you don't know how to drive." She said. "I do," she smirked, a little smugly. "Don't worry, Malfoy. I'll keep you safe."

He raised his eyebrow at her and watched her closely as she opened the drivers side door and sat in her seat, adjusting it and putting her seat belt on. He followed suit and sat in the passenger side, struggling to pull his own seat belt on. "You need to be gentler. They're designed to stop the body moving forward in the event of a crash." She briefly considered helping him, but decided against it. As she started the engine up, Malfoy jumped at the sudden movement and vibration of the car. Hermione smirked again as they got on their way. She always felt a little guilty enjoyment at introducing magical people to Muggle devices, especially when they seemed vaguely threatening. Like the first time she introduced Ron to a blender. That had nearly ended in disaster. Malfoy's knuckles were white on his lap as his fists were clenched tight, obviously nervous in this new contraption.

"Don't worry, Malfoy. I'm a good driver, I won't get us killed."

"You can't even fly a broom, Granger." He said through strained teeth.

"Really, Malfoy? Do you really think I would have gotten this far in our careers, still not being able to fly? I'm average."

He looked over curiously. "So forthcoming about your drawbacks?" He spoke tightly. "How refreshing."

"If you're referring to my time at school, killing myself to be top at everything, I still try. If I am able to do well, I do well. I don't stress as much as I did, but I was young back then. People grow. I am different than I was in school. I am fully aware that I am not the best at flying, I am average. I _know_ , however that I am a good driver." She looked at him, smirking again.

"Keep your fucking eyes in front, Granger!" He nearly screamed, panicked and tensing in his chair. She rolled her eyes. "Oh, relax. I'm not going to get us killed." She was sure the mirth at his distress was quite evident in her voice. "What about you, Malfoy? Are you seriously saying you are the exact same person as you were a few years ago?"

He didn't respond. "Exactly. Even if time did not change people, war _definitely_ changes people. For better and for worse."

Though Hermione didn't let it show, she was dreading this mission and the one in the future. She understood, of course that _if_ they were as good as each other then it would be a logical choice to pair them, but she didn't think it could end well. She did not know Malfoys methods, but she knew he was a coward in school and cowardice usually does not suddenly disappear. She sighed. She supposed she would have to wait and see how he performed on this mission. She glanced over at him. He seemed to have relaxed a bit more, probably comfortable with the speed, having been an accomplished Quidditch player in his past. He suddenly looked over at her, catching her in the act. She quickly looked back out of the wind-shield but felt his gaze linger on her, more than likely sizing her up in the same way she had been doing to him.

After a pause that felt like forever, he spoke up. "I'm not who I used to be, Granger. And for what it's worth, I apologise for all the shitty things I put you through in school."

In her surprise, she turned to look at him again, for an extended period of time but noticing him tensing, quickly turned back, looking out into the road. "Thank you, Malfoy." She said sincerely. "I apologise for slapping you in Third Year." He laughed. Hermione felt herself smiling at the sound. It was a sound she had not heard coming from him before and she found she liked it.

* * *

After arriving, they had purchased separate hotel rooms in the Muggle part of Gibraltar. While Muggle Gibraltar was small, the Wizard part was even smaller, and in an extremely small community, word of two strangers suddenly turning up would travel fast. Besides, it was better to keep as under the radar as possible in the search for these Death Eaters. Using the information they had acquired, they were able to pinpoint the location the enemy was probably hiding out in. It was a small home located just within the Wizard boundaries, which is where Hermione and Malfoy found themselves lurking behind it in the early hours of the morning.

Hermione had her back pressed against the rear wall of the house, keeping an eye out for any unwanted presences as Malfoy took down any wards that were in place, of which there were surprisingly few. They were near the sea, so the wind routinely whipped Hermione's hair into her face, almost blinding her, until she wrestled it aside, only for it to obstruct her view again a minute later. She huffed irritably and she could see Malfoy smirk at the sound. He unlocked the small window and beckoned her in. She started to crawl through the narrow opening in front of Malfoy and as soon as her head entered through the window, she heard uproarious laughter coming from the next room. It seemed they had at least been smart enough to put a Silencing Charm around the house. Looking down as she carefully avoided touching anything, she came to find they were in the kitchen. It was almost pitch black, but she refused to light the way with her wand. No need to draw unwanted attention. She turned back to find Malfoy slithering his way through the small gap. She hadn't expected him to make it easily. He was much taller and broader than she was, but he managed it with a deftness that she found surprising. He left the window open behind him. A clever tactic in case they needed to make a quick escape if things went south. She cast her usual spells to make sure she'd be getting no surprises, like the Kelpie mission and started to creep around the kitchen to the door.

"Careful not to knock anything." she whispered as quietly as she could.

"Yes thank you, Granger. I'm not a bloody newbie." he whispered back.

"Well all right, I was just making sure, for Merlins sake!" She turned away from him and started to move toward the source of the noise. Moving as lightly as she could, she tried to feel if there were any parts of the wooden floor that would squeak beneath her. It was an old looking home and more than likely hadn't had any renovations done in a long time. She was about to turn around to tell Malfoy where he wasn't to step, but she found him mimicking her motions exactly.

Hermione crouched with her back against the kitchen wall separating her and the Death Eaters. There was a strong flickering light coming from underneath the door and a smell like burning wood and alcohol. Another loud burst of laughter came. She couldn't make out anything they were saying though. Looking up at Malfoy, she signaled she was going to open the door a crack. He nodded in return. Reaching up and pulling the handle at a painfully slow pace, she pulled the door open a fraction. Unfortunately just as she did this a strong gust of wind blew through the open window and knocked over a vase containing some rotten flowers. Hermione watched almost in slow motion as it fell, whipping out her wand as fast as she could she aimed a levitating spell at the falling object. Her spell shot across the room but only caught the flowers. The vase shattered on the floor with a deafening crash and the room inside went silent.

Hermione held her breath, ready to curse the first person who walked through the door. Malfoy had a different idea, it transpired. As she heard someone get up and move towards her, she felt her wrist being grabbed and silently was dragged into the shadiest corner of the room, just behind the corner of the wall. Malfoy pushed her up against it and covered her with his own body, leaving her staring at his chest and smelling his scent.

 _"Oh you have got to be fucking joking."_ She thought as she tried to push him off of her. He stayed exactly where he was, peeking around the corner. She tried to twist around to see back into the kitchen with him, while still trying to move away. He pushed her back, his hand on her shoulder. The kitchen was suddenly thrown into light as the person who came into the room began searching for the source of the noise. Hermione stopped struggling, staying as silent as she could. Any more noise would draw them to her and Malfoy. They were behind a corner at least.

"Who left the bloody window open?!" a slurred voice called back into the room. Hermione recognised the voice and knew Malfoy did too. Amycus Carrow. She had been searching for him and his sister for _ages_ and this is where they were? She'd finally managed to find them on some low level mission to test their partnership? Ridiculous.

She heard the window slam shut as she was still forced to stare at Malfoy's chest. A crunch was heard and it seemed Carrow had stepped over the broken vase to make his way back to the other room, grumbling as he did. As soon as he left the kitchen, Hermione shoved against Malfoy again, successfully pushing him away from her this time. "What do you think you-" Her protests were silenced as he placed his hand firmly over her mouth and shushed her. Fire lit up in her eyes and she had to try very, _very_ hard not to shout at him. She ripped his had away from her mouth. "Did you just sh-" He placed his hand back over her mouth more firmly this time as he shushed her again. Her nostrils flared and she felt the anger rise up in her and was surprised it didn't explode into him. She was not above using dirty tactics when she was treated in a manner like this, and promptly dug her nails into the back of his had and licked his palm for good measure. He pulled his hand away from her mouth with a silent gasp of pain and surprise and glared down at her as he wiped his hand off of his pants.

"What the fuck, Granger? Are you trying to get us caught?!" he whispered furiously.

"Me trying to get us caught?" she whispered back sharply "What about you? I'd have the whole room stunned and on their way back to England by now if it hadn't been for your bloody trying to act like some kind of... of... MAN!" Neither of them had noticed the room the Death Eaters were in had become silent again.

"Oh bloody hell, all you Gryffindors are the same! Always ready to charge in without any thought for a method or a plan!" the kitchen door was wide open now, light flooding back into the kitchen, soon blocked by a figure entering.

"What plan, Malfoy? There's four Death Eaters in there. Nothing I haven't handled before. On my _own_ , I might add!"

"And just how do you know there's only four in there?"

Before Hermione could respond, she felt a wand at her throat. It was not Malfoys. She looked over and met the eyes of Amycus Carrow. He smirked gleefully at her. She rolled her eyes and looked back at her partner. "Oh well done, Malfoy. Now look what you've done!"

"Malfoy?" Carrow turned his wand so it was now under the chin of Draco. "My sister will be so delighted to see y-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, as Hermione shot him with a silent stunning spell and carefully levitated his body and set it softly on the ground so as to not make any noise. She looked back at Malfoy as she walked toward the open door. "We'll finish this later."

"Yeah, whatever." He sneered, following her out. She and Malfoy walked into the well lit room, and shot a stunning spell each at one of the Death Eaters, leaving Alecto Carrow the only conscious one standing in front of the fire with her wand on an end table just out of reach. They both pointed their wands at her at the exact same time.

"I didn't expect Amycus to be heading this little resistance," Malfoy mocked. "He was always shockingly stupid."

Alecto looked at him with venom in her eyes. "What an unlikely duo," she spat. "Never thought I'd see you two together. A coward blood traitor and a Mudblo-"

Malfoy shot a singing jinx at Carrow's leg. She cried out as it started to swell but she remained standing. Hermione looked over at him. His face was twisted in fierce anger. Surely he couldn't have gotten so infuriated at the use of the word Mudblood, could he?

"You see," he said, trying to get his anger under control, "My partner here, doesn't appreciate that word very much and I take a bit of exception to you calling me a _coward_ , Alecto. I'll have to ask you to not do it again, or I'm afraid I don't know what might happen."

She growled in anger. "How dare you raise your wand to me, you filthy blood traitor! The Dark Lord should have gotten rid you when he had the chance. There will come a time again when everyone will know the right to hold a wand lies only with the Purebloods and we can exterminate all you COWARDS and filthy Mud-"

Malfoy and Hermione both shot a stinging jinx at her other leg at the same time, Malfoy using a lot of force and looking absolutely livid. Alecto collapsed to the floor. She looked up at Hermione as though she wanted to rip her throat out with her teeth. "Well you were warned." Hermione spoke, mimicking Malfoy's attitude. "It _is_ very impolite."

As Alecto Carrow opened her mouth to throw more insults around, Hermione stunned her. "Enough of that drivel." She stepped over her like she was a pile of putrid dirt on the floor and pulled her special Floo powder out of her pocket. Throwing it into the fire, it led straight to a secure holding location to keep the Death Eaters before their hearing. After relieving the four of them of their wands, Hermione and Draco levitated them through. After closing the line they looked at each other. "I can handle myself." Hermione said, almost defensively, crossing her arms as they turned to go back to the hotel they had booked for the night, leaving through the front door this time. "I'm sure you can. But we needed a plan, and I wasn't about to go barging in without any idea what I was doing."

" _I_ knew what I was doing! Plus that doesn't mean that you get to dictate what I do on a mission as if I'm some child fresh out of training! Might I remind you that I have consistently scored above you, both in Hogwarts and in our yearly reviews!" They apparated together to alley behind their Muggle hotel where there would be no prying eyes and headed in, still arguing.

"You don't get to dictate how a mission goes any more than I do. The same way you don't like I made a decision for you, you had _just_ made one for me. We're supposed to be partners, so stop acting like you're on solo missions. And I wouldn't be so sure about scoring above me either, by the way."

"Oh really? And how would you know that?" She made her way up the stairs to their floor in front of him.

"How would you know that I apparently scored lower than you?"

"I've checked the results." They stopped outside a room door.

"Well check them again." He said, entering the room and closing the door in her face. It was only then she had realised she had unconsciously walked him back to his room, and now had to make her way back to her own, almost the whole way across the floor. She let out a frustrated sigh and stomped her way over.

Damn straight she'd check the results again.


	8. Departure

It had been over a week since they came back from Gibraltar and Hermione refused to talk to Malfoy. She was being immature and stubborn, she knew but she didn't care. Her pride had been hurt. Of course Malfoy had turned out to be correct and he had beaten her in various sections of their reviews over the years. This year in particular he had almost overtaken her as top of the list... almost. How could she have missed this? How? A voice in the back of her head, a voice that seemed more and more to sound like Malfoy said _"Arrogance."_

Arrogance? It was almost certainly not arrogance. Hermione was not arrogant, she was just correct. Correct and confident in her abilities. No, it was not arrogance, it was just self assurance...

Draco had overtaken her this year in Wandless Magic, Occlumency, Potions and Herbology. She smirked with pride when she saw she had overtaken him in Physical Defence, Imperius Curse Repulsion, Transfiguration and Cruciatus Curse Stamina. They were all but evenly matched on everything else, including their success rate on missions. She made a mental note to study up on these particular skills for the next review.

* * *

Hermione spent all of the next day with Harry and Ron before she set off for the big mission. As much as they didn't want it to be, the first bit of the day had some awkward undertones due to the bad drunken decision that had been made between herself and Ron. But, as these things do, when with friends, it gave way to humour and by the end of the day they were left laughing about how ridiculous the situation was. Again she was reminded just how lost she would be without these two in her life. Hermione had never had any siblings, but had found a spiritual one in Harry. It was quite difficult to describe the bond they shared, but she knew she would die for him and vice versa. He was her brother. Plain and simple. And Ron. Well while she would never feel quite as comfortable calling Ron her brother anymore, due to the intimacy and romantic love they had shared in the past, she still platonically loved him just as dearly as she did Harry.

Many people had asked her curiously in the past how she was able to survive with two boys as best friends and didn't she need the occasional girl time? Though she knew they didn't mean it in this fashion, she always took a small amount of offence to this question. She was never a particularly girly woman and was certainly no extrovert. She could not really think of any thing she would need a female friend for discussing and if there was something she couldn't discuss with the boys she'd been friends with for over 10 years, she was either able to consult with her own inner monologue or a book, as she had always done.

As the evening drew to a close she knew she would have to leave soon to travel with Malfoy. They were heading out in the middle of the night this time, rather than the morning.

She sat in her apartment on her couch with the two of them, herself in the middle. She only had one sofa, so the three of them were squashed together, but she didn't mind it much. They had all managed to make themselves comfortable, somewhat draped over each other. They weren't really paying attention to the TV which was playing some movie or other. Ron had become accustomed to the occasional strange Muggle device she kept around her apartment. They were talking lightly about nothing in particular, and Hermione found herself becoming quieter and quieter, being sucked into her own dreading thoughts as the night wore on.

She was coming to the very real realisation that this would be the last time she would see or speak to the two most important people in her life for a very long time. They had been apart for varying lengths of time before, of course, but this was shaping up to be the longest. She adjusted her position suddenly and pulled the two of them into a very tight hug.

They also quietened at this. She couldn't see their faces from her position, but she could tell they were looking at each other curiously before responding by holding on just as tightly. They stayed like this for the longest time just savouring the intimacy before Ron spoke.

"You won't be gone too long, Hermione. We've dealt with long separations before."

She felt Harry nod in agreement. "And you'll know where to find us when you get back."

She did not reply. Instead trying to keep her emotions from spilling over. Her heart felt heavier with sadness than she can ever remember it feeling before and it radiated up to her throat. She felt Harry kiss the top of her head and press his cheek against it and Ron began to rub her back, and they both hugged her tighter still.

By Merlin she loved her two boys.

* * *

After Ron and Harry had left, she decided to keep her mind off of them by rereading her mission brief until she was to go to the meeting point. She entered her sitting room to read, but one look at the sofa changed her mind. She instead relocated to the kitchen and sat at her dining table.

 **MISSION BRIEF**

 _Agent(s):_ Draco Lucius Malfoy. Hermione Jean Granger.

 _Location:_ Confidential.

 _Target(s):_ Unknown at this time.

 _Aim:_ Infiltrate Muggle slave trafficking ring. Obtain trust of targets. Gain information on motives and locations of these crimes. Identity to remain hidden. Detain targets. Unlawful acts are permitted within reason to reach mission completion.

 _Est. Completion Time:_ 18 months.

 _Loss of Target(s) Lives:_ Acceptable but undesirable.

 _Communication with Ministry:_ Communication acceptable in extreme emergency but otherwise prohibited.

 _Identities Provided:_ Confidential.

 _Password:_ Scamander

Hermione sighed and she read it again. There was not an awful lot of information given. It was the shortest brief she had ever seen. They would be presented with more information when they got to their meeting point.

She started to daydream about nothing and everything as she watched the time pass, until eventually she rose from her seat, and proceeded to their meeting point.

She apparated into a rundown looking muggle shop that had never been and would never be opened. It was merely a front. Standing in the middle of the room, she placed her wand down on the table as identification and uttered her password; "Scamander." A slip of parchment appeared from thin air and gently floated down onto the table next to her wand. She picked both it, and the parchment up. Before she could read it however, she heard the crack of an apparition and Malfoy placed his wand on the table next to hers.

"You're late."

"I am aware, Granger. My mother was not happy to see me go, unfortunately. Ferula." At this, his own piece of parchment appeared and he caught it. They looked at each other and looked at their information.

 _Location:_ Kent Wizarding Community.

 _Target(s):_ Unknown

 _Identity:_ Elizabeth Bentley. Finn D'Arcy. Couple within the higher end of Pureblood society. Attended Hogwarts, both of Ravenclaw houses. Relationship began over three years ago. On an extended holiday in Kent. There will be numerous opportunity to enter the society there and obtain information on the illegal activities.

 _Accommodation:_ Queen Meadhbh's Rooms Hotel

Hermione looked up at Malfoy and rolled her eyes. "Of course we'd be forced together as a couple. Of course. How bloody predictable. Why don't we just enter Kent with a big sign around our necks stating we're from the Ministry." Once they had finished reading, their pieces of parchment burst into flames.

"Either way, this is our life now. We'd better get used to it." He transfigured a glass cabinet into a large mirror facing the two of them. Hermione knew what he was thinking. Time for their glamours. She stood in front of the mirror, examining herself for a few minutes before deciding what she'd do. Eventually she settled on sticking with her own hair colour, she'd always liked it after all, a dark cool toned brown, but straightened and shortened it, so it sat just below her shoulders, and changed her eyes from their dark brown to a lighter hazel. After that, it was only a matter of changing her facial features just enough to make her unrecognisable. She looked at Malfoy through the mirror and saw that he had too, only changed just enough to not be recognised. However when she turned and looked at him directly, he looked like himself again. Hermione correctly guessed he had cast a spell to be sure they would be able to recognise each other and she cast that spell oh herself. However, they still appeared under their identities in their reflections. Hermione inspected Malfoys new identity and he did the same. She supposed his new image was handsome. He had shortened himself slightly and taken the opposite route with his hair, it had gone from white blonde to jet black. His eyes, however remained the same. Hermione wondered for a moment, why she lingered on this arbitrary detail.

She looked at him again and held out her hand. "Shall we go then, sweetums?" The sarcasm in her voice was evident.

"Yes, dear." He responded, sounding as if this was an automatic response to her statement, something he had been saying to her for years. He took her hand. It tingled as he did and Hermione ignored this. She took one last look outside onto the city that was her home, the bakery and coffee shop on the corner she loved to frequent. The pub she, Ron and Harry had spent countless hours and lock-in's in. Everything here was so familiar to her. And she would not see it again for a very long time. Malfoy's fingers twitched in her hand and she was sucked away as though being squeezed through a small tube and landed steadily in the lobby of the aforementioned hotel.

Well there was no going back now.

* * *

They approached the front desk, still keeping their hands intertwined as a good couple would. They made small chit chat with the pompous and flamboyant man behind the desk, who remarked more than once on what a lovely couple they made, how he adored Hermione's hair colour and complimented her figure, how he loved Malfoy's 'jaw that could cut glass' his sense of fashion. Hermione noted more of the compliments were being fired at him rather than her and the very subtle responses Malfoy gave, such as flashing his most dazzling smile and even a cheeky wink. Hermione almost saw the clerk swoon, but he had managed to hold himself steady. While the two of them chatted, Hermione looked around at the Lobby. It was a magnificently large hotel from the look of it, full of clean sharp lines and bright white and soft grey colours. A gargantuan crystal chandelier hung above them at least a full story in length. She supposed such luxury was to be expected when playing the part of a young couple in high society.

"Elizabeth, dear." She heard being called from beside her and she turned to look up at 'Finn', motioned for her to step ahead of him to take the huge staircase that could have fit five people abreast on it an made of sumptuous mahogany wood. As she walked up and Malfoy followed, she turned back to wave goodbye to the man behind the desk, but found his eyes firmly fixed on Malfoy's arse. She smirked at this and supposed she agreed Malfoy in his glamour was quite handsome, as he was as himself.

As they entered their room, on the third floor, Hermione decided she would be taking the lift from now on. She could feel her temperature rising and was out of breath. Malfoy closed the door behind her and she looked at their suite for the first time in astonishment. It was massive. Bigger than her apartment, she guessed. Hermione had always allowed herself the luxury of getting exited and exploring her hotel room, eager to see what kind of opulence had been afforded to her. She felt that this time would be different from all the others however. The first thing she went to investigate, as always, was the bathroom. As she entered she very nearly audibly gasped. She had never seen a bathroom so huge. The coutertops were made of lavish white and grey marble accented by the walls, covered in silver and royal blue mosaics that reminded her of a wonderfully clear night sky. There was a walk in rain head shower which she was sure she would eagerly make use of very soon and...

She paused as she looked at the bath. Hermione walked over, placed her hand on the rim and just sighed and smiled contentedly. It was a free-standing, white, circular bathtub that could easily fit five people at the same time. On the end furthest away from her there was a stack of taps that gave the bath different effects, such as bubbles, scents and colours and as she looked down into it, she saw there were jets placed all around for a nice massage type bath. Oh she was in heaven. Hermione had never really been one for material things, but hey when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Turning back to the countertops she caught sight of herself again in the silver gilded mirror and nearly had a heart attack before she remembered she was under a glamour charm and she was not looking at some stranger in her lovely new bathroom.

Venturing back out of the bathroom she turned her attention to the huge expanse of the rest of the suite. She had never been in a hotel room that didn't only consist of a bathroom and a bedroom, but this one seemed to contain at least three. The bathroom, as usual was placed right next to the door out to the hallway of the hotel, which was now behind her. In front of her were too solid wood doors and one archway. Entering through the archway, she found a sumptuous dining room, equipped with the same mahogany wood dining table and chairs, each engraved with beautiful filigree designs and a large bouquet of Snapdragons and Lily's. She noted there wasn't a kitchen in sight, but a menu was placed on the table. Hermione suspected this would be reminiscent of Hogwarts, the House-Elves would send their food up from the basement.

She moved to the side and opened the first door into a grand study and living room. The floor was covered in a rich white carpet. There was a fireplace taller than she was to one side and a large solid desk sat in the middle of the room and a floor to ceiling window stood behind it. Hermione couldn't help herself, she ran over and pressed her nose against the glass, looking out into the city at night, lit up with various faeries and magical creatures flitted about creating an enchanting light display on the streets, people and buildings below. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, but eventually had to pull herself away when some of the faeries began to imitate and make fun of her. As she turned she caught sight of a bunch of files, some open, some not on the desk. Malfoy must have already started. On the opposite side of the window there were some very fashionable and expensive looking couches that did not look particularly comfortable and in the middle of their semi-circle, a solid wood coffee table with more flowers perched at the centre.

She looked up and saw the second door she had not gone through yet was now open. Hermione stood transfixed as she stared in through the door to see an absolutely monstrous queen sized bed, littered in adjoining coloured cushions and faux fur throws.

 _'Don't do it. You'll make a fool of yourself.'_ The voice in her head said.

"I'm going to do it." She whispered to herself.

 _'Don't do it!'_

But Hermione had already moved around the desk and took off at a sprint toward the bedroom and with an ungraceful squeal, launched herself up in the air and landed spread eagled upon the bed. Oh Merlin is was so damn comfortable. She closed her eyes and breathed contentedly. A second later she heard an exasperated and curious voice ask "What on earth are you doing Granger?"

Hermione pushed herself up, rolled her eyes and turned to look at him. "I am simply-"

She exclaimed and covered her eyes. "Malfoy... You are naked." Her hand was interrupting her line of sight below his hips, but from his hips up, she could see everything. He seemed to be standing at the entrance of a walk in wardrobe. She would have to investigate that further once there wasn't a naked former Quiddich playing Auror in her way.

He looked down at himself then back up to her. "I suppose I am. I was going to go have a shower, but _someone_ came barrelling through the bedroom door before I could leave."

"Well why aren't you in a towel, or your underpants or something! Put your dick away for Christs sake." She said indignantly.

"Because Granger, this is my home now. And in my home, I can go from my bedroom to my bathroom naked if I want to."

"Our home. I have to live here too. But I'm sure the desk clerk would be more than happy to... appraise you."

"Indeed. I'm sure he would, but he is not my type."

"Not your type, eh? I never took you to be into men Malfoy. That could make the mission a bit more difficult." She jibbed.

"I am not straight, Granger, but that my no means means that I am gay. But tell me, am I making you uncomfortable?" He was smirking. The infuriatingly, arrogant and smug smirk she _hated_. She glared up at him and let her hand fall to her side.

"Are you challenging me?" She kept her gaze fixed on his face. He cocked his eyebrow. "I suppose I am." He crossed his arms.

"You're going to have to work harder than that to make me uncomfortable." She said as she stood and brushed passed him into the wardrobe and had to hold her tongue at the sheer size of it. There was a full length mirror in there, which at this time was reflecting Malfoy's arse. She also noted that he had removed his glamour charm and she followed suit. Prolonged use wasn't recommended anyway.

"Oh? Who would have thought Virgin Granger would be so... comfortable." She snorted ungraciously and turned to look at him again. "Malfoy, if you seriously think I am still a virgin at this point in life and with the kind of job we work being so _stressful_... You've got another thing coming."

"Yeah right." He rolled his eyes and started toward the door for his shower. "Hermione Granger, bookworm and know-it-all in a sexual situation. That'd be a laugh."

"Draco Malfoy, I was stationed as a Burlesque dancer for four months beforehand. And might I point out, that's why half of the Acromantula Gang are now in Azkaban."

Malfoy had stopped dead in his tracks. He turned slowly to look at her. A mix of disbelief and mirth on his face. "You worked as a stripper?!"

She glared over at him. Typical fucking statement. "No." She said firmly. "I worked as a Burlesque dancer."

"You got naked for money!"

"I did not. Burlesque is not stripping. It's theatre. Just because it has some... suggestive costumes does not make it the same." Hermione walked toward him now. He was still standing in the doorway. She spoke with purpose. She had had to explain this difference day in day out after she had gotten back from that mission and was frankly getting sick of it. She was standing in front of him now. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him out of the doorway.

"Don't challenge me to see who can make the other more uncomfortable. You _will_ lose." And with that she slammed the bedroom door in his face.


	9. Reckless

After the interesting bedroom revelation and Hermione slamming the door in Malfoy's face, she had slowly come to the realisation she would be sleeping in the same bed as him for 18 months, at least. Damn. Well he had challenged her to see who could make the other more uncomfortable. So as she had the hotel suite to herself while he was in the shower, she decided to get some work done in the study, while slightly underdressed. She tied her hair roughly up, donned her glasses and started to work. All she was in was her underpants and a cropped jumper that showed off her stomach. Just to be safe (they were on a secret mission she had to remind herself) she put a spell over the large study window that made it appear to outside viewers as empty. She wasn't sure exactly how long after she had begun her research it happened. She always did tend to lose track of time while working. She had gotten up from the chair and moved around to the front of the desk, her back to the open door. She had one hand on the desk and the other was twirling her quill between her teeth. She was studying a map, when she felt a pair of eyes on her. Looking up into the reflection of the door through the window, she saw Malfoy who had stopped in his tracks, and was _staring_. She smirked; an arrogant, smug smirk, the same one he had given her. He looked up and saw he'd been caught. After a split second of mortification on his face, he changed and he looked positively _furious_ with himself.

As he stomped back into the bedroom Hermione allowed herself to gloat. Oh yeah. She had won this round. AND she had managed to pin down a correlation in location of these Muggles going missing. It was on a street with a nice restaurant, they'd be able to use that as an excuse. Go out to dinner. Snoop around afterward and see what they could uncover. Glancing up at the large clock above the fireplace she saw it was nearly three in the morning. She packed the papers away and made her way into the bedroom. The lights were extinguished and she supposed Draco was pretending to be asleep. The pitch blackness didn't effect her. She was after all, one of the best agents in her field. She had long since had a Healer cast a long and complicated charm on her eyes, that allowed them to adjust far far quicker to the dark than would be usual. It was an expensive procedure and often did not aid with sleep, but was a necessary evil in her line of work. She made her way around to what she supposed had been designated 'her' side of the bed and climbed in. Oooh yes, it was a lovely bed. She wasn't sure she'd ever had pillows or a mattress so squishy in her life and she felt herself sinking. Usually, she supposed as she felt herself drifting, she would still feel really uncomfortable at the whole bed situation, but she had been challenged by an arrogant prick and she would rather snap her wand than lose to him. "I win..." she whispered. She heard him sneer in return and she was asleep.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, they cavorted about town in their glamours, attempting to scrounge up any information available through artful gossip with the locals and intense research. Almost every night, they had gone out to dinner at that same restaurant but were as yet unable to find any traceable evidence to link to who they would specifically need to interact with. As well as that, spending constant time with Malfoy was starting to grate on her nerves. They didn't really have anything to talk about and besides she didn't even know where she would start, and it seemed, neither did he.

However, while they were currently unable to hold a conversation that didn't involve work for more than five minutes, their other antics had not been so underwhelming. What Hermione had taken as a challenge to make Malfoy uncomfortable had also seemed to become a challenge to himself. They had appeared to each other in various states of undress throughout the suite, both attempting when the other least expected it as though to shock a concession out of them. Malfoy had progressed his game, as well as appearing with little clothes on, he had also begun invading her personal bubble. Hermione, as quite a private person found this uncomfortable for many many reasons and had been betrayed by her face on these occasions when it got quite red. He'd gotten so close to her before she had been forced to back away so they would not collide, however he had continued to advance upon her until eventually, with a sharp intake of breath, she had hit the dining table and nearly climbed on top of it to get away from him. The self fulfilled smirk on his face told her he knew he had won that round. She'd brushed passed him after that wish a shove that was a bit more forceful than necessary.

Their first break through of the case came when shopping around the town in their glamours, they had overheard a young wizard with small beady eyes bragging to another that he had been officially indoctrinated into a sect of wizards who were upholding "traditional wizard values." In short, blood purity.

As he said goodbye to his friend, Hermione and Malfoy followed after him at a distance. At first it was quite easy to do this as he stayed along very populated streets which meant they would be almost impossible to notice, however soon he began to twist and turn down some utterly deserted alleyways and back lanes that, to be quite frank, did not look like they belonged in the quaint little town.

He paused to a moment to brush some dirt off of his Italian leather shoes. In the time it took him to do this, Hermione and Malfoy had disillusioned themselves to blend more easily and be harder to spot in the dim lane. After another few minutes of walking in arbitrary directions, Hermione had begun to suspect that he knew he was being followed. Just as she was about to call it quits for safety's sake a bright and silent flash of light blue lit up the alleyway and gave the two of them obvious shadows. Hermione placed both hands on Malfoys chest, brutally shoved him around a small corner and pressed herself fat against him to avoid detection. She felt his heart speed up and was very aware hers was doing the same. She tried to ignore the fact her breasts were being crushed against him and also tried to ignore the feeling below her stomach that this seemed to inspire in order to pay attention to what was happening.

The young wizard let out a high pitched scream at the appearance of the light and fell back against some bins set up against the opposite wall.

"Blaine." A booming voice called.

"Em-Emmerich." The young wizard named Blaine stuttered. Hermione shifted away from Malfoy to peek around the corner, Blaine was pulling himself up by the wall and brushing the dirt and rubbish off of himself. Across from him was a severe looking man, over 6ft in height and built like a tank. He towered over Blaine and Hermione could feel the intimidation in the air.

"Hi Emmerich. How-How's it going? I-I mean,uh... Whats-"

"You've been running your mouth." Emmerich imposed upon the smaller man.

"Running my mouth? No. No! I mean, I may have told one of my friends about it... but-"

"You've been running your mouth." Emmerich said slower and quieter. "She is unhappy."

"Wait-" Blaine had thrown his hand out in front of him in defence but it was too late. Before Hermione could react, Emmerich had sliced the air with his wand and opened Blaine's throat. As he clutched at the wound in a vein attempt to stop the blood leaving his body, Emmerich stood and watched. As Blaine fell to his knees Hermione drew her own wand and stepped out from behind the corner. She could feel Malfoy grappling for her wrist, trying to pull her back but she wrenched out of his grip and aimed the strongest stunning spell she could muster at Emmerich. The jet of red light flew towards him and struck. He turned to look at her, but did not collapse as he should have. The stunning spell seemed to have been absorbed by his suit. He slashed the air with his wand and as Hermione saw the curse fly towards her a shield charm was thrown up in front of her by Malfoy, not a moment too soon, but either the shield was too weak or the curse was much stronger than anticipated. It hit her in the stomach like a vicious punch, she flew backwards and felt her head crack against the wall. She managed to hold onto conciousness as she crashed to the ground. Her vision was blurry and faded, she saw three Malfoys burst out from behind the wall and engaged Emmerich. She couldn't see what was going on, she could just see blinding flashes of light around her and a voice shouting. Or was it two voices?

Hermione attempted to push herself to her feet, but her vision swam even more dangerously in front of her and she fell back to the ground. She wasn't sure how long she lay there, trying to get a handle on herself, but it felt like hours. She suddenly felt herself get hoisted up under her arms and dragged to the side, she was turned then she felt the crushing pressure of apparition take her. She didn't know where she was or who she was with. When they landed she would have fallen to the ground again if the person with her hadn't caught her. The last thing she heard before she completely blacked out was "What the hell were you thinking?"


	10. Agitation

**Thanks for Dolphin02 for pointing out** **one of my errors.**

* * *

The first thing she sensed around her was a warm bed, a horrible pain across her abdomen and slow breathing nearby. Opening her eyes, she saw it was dark and quiet. The room, bed and even she found, the breathing familiar. He was next to her, in 'their' bed, asleep. It was while she lay there, watching Draco Malfoy sleep soundly next to her, his hand sandwiched between his head and his pillow, squashing his face and his mouth slightly agape that she came to remember exactly how she got here. Or at the very least, she could piece together how she had gotten here from the vague foggy memories she had of what seemed a few hours ago. She had attempted to capture an enemy and had failed. She had been downed in a duel and had needed to be _saved_. She had needed to be saved again. Shame pooled in the bottom of her heart as she thought of it.

Shame quickly gave way to frustration. Hermione pushed herself up into a sitting position with a stab of pain like a knife tearing through her and a sharp intake of breath. How could she have let this happen to her? She had worked so hard to become better than her previous self. Years and countless hours training to improve upon her shortcomings that had been made evident during the Second War. Endless nights in the gym with Harry and Ron and so much time spent in the simulated mission rooms, they felt like a second home to her.

When she had been set upon by Snatchers. When she had been tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. Ron leaving them. Attacked by Nagini. All of these events and more that could have been prevented if she had been stronger, faster, braver and bolder. If she had just been _better_. She had not been as headstrong as Harry or as brave as Ron. Bloody hell, even Neville had had more steel grit in his bones than she had at the time. After that War, she had felt like a failure, even after all of their victories, and she had sworn to herself to never feel like that again.

She wasn't sure how long she sat there fuming at herself before an annoyed voice clouded with sleep said "You're awake." She looked over at him as he looked disapprovingly on her. "I am." She said shortly. She didn't like the way he was looking at her. Like she had done wrong. And of course she had, she knew that herself. But she didn't need to be _reminded_ of it. "What happened... afterward?" She was aware her tone of voice sounded haughty. But either she couldn't stop it or she didn't care. She wasn't sure which.

"Afterward? You mean after you barged out in front of a dangerous enemy with no information, no plan of attack, or no second thoughts?" He pushed himself out of bed and stood before her anger in his face. "You mean after you jeopardised one of the most important missions either of us has ever or will ever have the chance to be on, because you were impulsive and idiotic?" The anger at her had clearly been building up for a while before he had fallen asleep. She knew deep down everything his was saying was the truth, but she refused to admit it to herself. And she would most certainly never admit it to him. She told herself that what she had done wasn't as terrible as he was making it out to be, but she was finding it hard to justify her actions even to herself, so she chose to remain silent and simply attempted to stare him down.

He met her gaze, never backing down as he said "I took care of it. His suit absorbed curses, I managed to hit his skin and he went down. Before we left, I entered his mind with Legilimency and got any information I could. Obliviated him, put an undetectable tracking spell on him and brought the two of us back here. You are going to be out of action for a few days at least." He gestured to her, his disapproval and annoyance obvious. She scoffed back at him, throwing the covers back from herself and moved her legs over the side of the bed. These movements pained her greatly, sending waves after waves of sharp pains up and down her abdomen but she made sure to not let it show on her face. As she stood, she felt the connections her legs made to her back and the pressures upon them in the most painful way possible. She felt as if her lower back had been cracked in two and with a cry of agony collapsed to the floor. She had a moment of delirious panic, where she was sure this unbearable, unspeakable pain was a sign that she had lost her legs, that she would never walk again and that this was the end of her career as she knew it. It was a few seconds before she calmed herself quickly and realised she could feel the carpet burn on her knees where she had fallen and could feel her feet beneath her. Pulling herself up to sit back on the bed, she stared at Malfoy who had not moved. "What has happened to me?" Hermione tried to conceal the fear in her voice, but she did so badly. If he noticed this, it did not change his demeanour. Legilimency

"You were hit with a curse. I'm not sure what one, but it passed through your abdomen and has latched onto the bottom of your spine. It is dying, and will be gone by this time tomorrow. It'll take you longer than that to completely recover, though. My spells and potions have told me that much." Hermione managed to sit herself back upon the bed without much pain. It was obvious to Hermione that Malfoy had had to work over her for a few hours at least casting containment spells to keep the curse from spreading and feeding her potions to minimise the effects. Malfoy seemed to know she knew as well, but not a word of it passed between them.

"Yes well I'll be fine by tomorrow, I'm sure." Malfoy rolled his eyes and seemed to grow agitated at her again. She did not care.

"I'm sure." He repeated at her, condescendingly. She glared at him. "You know what, Granger, I'm getting really pissed off with your attitude problem. You act as if you're the greatest fucking agent to work in this field, like you practically originated the job. Like you're some kind of infallible God or something. I know and you know you used to be more brains than brawn and I never thought I'd say this but you were better back then. You left your head back in Hogwarts and sacrificed it to be stronger physically. It is almost always a choice made out of vanity and only leads to danger, as was perfectly evident today. I swear Hermione, if you ever put our mission or our lives in danger like that again, I will take you down a peg myself." And with that he turned and slammed the door out of the bedroom.

* * *

A couple of hours after that, Hermione awoke again in much the same way she did last night. Malfoy had not come back into the room, nor had she expected him to. She spent the rest of the day fuming at him and experimenting with walking. With ever passing hour the pain had lessened but she wasn't able to go far. She was sitting up in bed reading nearer the end of the day when Malfoy opened the bedroom door and made his way straight into the closet, not emerging until he was fully dressed and in his glamour. "I'm going out." He said simply.

"Without me?" She protested, sitting up suddenly, ignoring the pain it brought on.

"Yes, without you." He replied sharply. "You are incapacitated, through your own fault, you will be nothing but a liability. I'll give you the details when I get back." Before Hermione could stop him he had strode out the bedroom door and slammed it behind him. She may have to take him down a peg or two if he kept up like this, she thought to herself.


	11. Panic (Rewritten)

**Chapter rewritten**

* * *

About five hours after Draco had left he sent his Patronus back to her to inform her that he was still investigating and had not been captured. Hermione recoiled from the sight of it, the nearly six meter long Anaconda slithered around her ankles, it's cloudy silver appearance not distracting her from the thought that her Patronus was but a small Otter, ready to be devoured by this monster of a protective spirit. The irony was not lost on her.

She had already paced the suite at least fourteen times. She was bored out of her mind! Malfoy wasn't here to argue with her. She couldn't concentrate on her research. She was damn bloody restless and it was only aggravated by the fact that she couldn't move as fast as she wanted to and the pain in her back. It were at a level now where she could effectively ignore them if she wanted to, but every time she felt them, it just increased her frustration.

Twelve hours after the first update, he sent another. Hermione nearly jumped out of her skin when she stepped out of the foggy shower and there was a dirty great snake staring at her. She couldn't help staring back, she felt like her reflexes should have kicked in but she just stood frozen and stared at the snake and it stared back. She couldn't help but see the arrogant look in it's eyes that Malfoy himself usually graced her with. After two full minutes of a staring contest, it slowly blinked at her and evaporated.

She made the decision thereafter that forcing herself to do something was better than getting frustrated at doing nothing, So she made herself sit down and look over the research again. Hermione thought to herself it shouldn't be so difficult for her to motivate herself into researching. Studying had been what she was most well known for in Hogwarts after all.

There wasn't anything in her research notes that she didn't know already. But she trawled through them in the hopes that she would catch some nuance or something she had previously missed. Over the last number of months a steady amount of muggles had been going missing. They didn't know how many exactly, it had taken the Ministry a while to admit that there was some magical reason behind it, rather than muggles killing muggles, as usual. Almost all the muggles who had gone missing were women, but there was a small proportion of young men who had disappeared as well. A couple of years ago working on this case would have sickened her to her stomach, but since then she'd seen an awful lot and been through some hard times. It was no secret to her that these people were being taken into a slave and sexual trafficking ring. Muggles were especially vulnerable when kept in captivity by wizards. They had no way to escape, they didn't know anything about the magical community, they couldn't know about wards or potions, they wouldn't know what kind of alarms or traps would have been set in place and they didn't know the names to fear. She had thought for a while on why this wizard elitist society was kidnapping muggles of all people, when she had originally gotten the assignments, but if human psychology had taught her anything it was that thinks they often claimed to despise in public held a morbid fascination within. There was no particular type that was being taken. Women from fourteen years old to thirty two, all of varying descriptions. Men between the ages of seventeen and twenty eight. As she trawled, nothing in particular was jumping at her, as it hadn't the many times she and Malfoy had done this in previous times.

Hermione worked late into the night, reading and rereading the various bits of information, hoping and praying for some clue as to where to go next. They had a photo of one of the younger girls taken on her mobile phone only a few hours before she was reported missing, but it was completely unusable. Cameras had only just begun to be attached to mobiles and their photos were of awful quality. Hermione groaned inwardly and rubbed her tired eyes with the heel of her hands. She glanced up at the clock. She'd been here for hours already. And had nothing to show for it. She stood and turned to look down at the people walking and chatting below her. All seemed calm and peaceful. Couples were walking in each others arms under the street lamps, smiling and laughing at each other, bundled up against the cold weather that didn't pay attention to what season it was. As it always did in England. A group of teenagers loitered in a dark corner, out of the way of the rest of the public, trying to impress each other with stories and awkwardly attempting to initiate physical contact with someone in the group she liked. Hermione thought back to her own experiences as a teenager. Well... she didn't really have any. The most teenager thing she could think that had happened to her in her youth was attending the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum. That was it. And that wasn't even that exciting. She'd been kissed on the cheek by him. Nothing more. But at the time, that was enough to send her heart pumping a mile a minute and to feel tingly all over. After that night, there were no other teenage experiences for her, really. She had fought with Ron, had to help Harry with his Triwizard tasks. Organize the D.A. Break into the Ministry. Study for her OWL's. Try and convince Harry that battered old potions book was leading to trouble. Defend Hogwarts against Death Eaters the night Dumbledore died. Go on the run. She'd known her teenage years were over well before all of that happened. She was always mature beyond her years and as logical as she could muster. But sometimes she wondered if she had have allowed herself to indulge in her youth more, would she still be the same person? Would she have the same friend. She knew what people in the Ministry said about her behind her backs and she knew what Malfoy thought of her.

They all thought she was in essence completely heartless and arrogant to boot. And she caught herself sometimes being a complete asshole, and she couldn't stop doing it. She saw herself pushing people's buttons unnecessarily, she saw her pride getting the better of her on many occasions. She had always told herself when she was younger that if she ever found herself becoming that person she would curse herself into oblivion before it happened. But it had happened without her realising it, and it was too late to change it without wounded dignity now. She had always thought that people who were like that put themselves on a very high pedestal, and sooner or later, they would come crashing down. Hard. The higher the pedestal, the harder the fall. She turned away from the window staring down into the streets full of people without a care in the world. As she sat back down at the desk and rubbed her eyes again, she didn't see the small wisp of a weak patronus disintegrate to nothing before it got within a meter of her window.

* * *

Hermione awoke with a start, papers sticking to the side of her face, hair comically sticking straight up in the same position it had been in while she was sleeping on the desk. She squinted her bleary eyes out of the window while one hand unstuck papers from her face and the other one attempted to flatten her hair. The bright morning light stung her eyes and she had to close them again while they adjusted. Based on the position of the sun and the time of year, she judged it to be about eight in the morning. She looked up and the clock above her. Eight twenty eight. Damn. Five points from Gryffindor. As she tried to wake her brain up, slumped in the chair, she felt like she was supposed to be looking for something. It took a few minutes of her rubbing and slapping her face to wake herself up when it suddenly came to her.

"Oh fuck!" She exclaimed out loud. Malfoy's patronus had never come last night. She looked up at the clock again, hear heart rate picking up. What time had he sent the last one? She wasn't sure... It had to have been at least twenty four hours. And that was outside the time she should have been looking for him. Oh dear god, what had that prat gotten himself into. A voice at the back of her head berated her for her thoughts, reminding her of what she had thought about last night about attempting to change her attitude. She brushed it aside as she moved as fast as she could to the wardrobe to change. Fresh jolts of pain shot up her back as she moved quicker than she thought wise, but she had been through worse pain. This was nothing she couldn't handle. She was just about to throw her hair up away from her face when a loud bang echoed down the hallway.

Immediately Hermione dropped to her knees and crouched into the shadows of the wardrobe. She held her wand at the ready and went through her attack plans and escape routes. There was no noise after the bang. No shouts, no walking through the rooms, no further bangs or explosions. Was someone looking for her? Who would have known where they were? Who were they and what were their intentions? How many were-

Her thoughts were cut off when there was a thud and a heavy groan. What was happening now? Well hiding like a child wasn't going to solve anything. Quiet as a mouse, she crept out of her shadows and keeping low to the ground, peeked around the doorway. They weren't in the bedroom. The door was at the exact same angle she had left it. She could hear someone shuffling in the hallway. There was a crash and a shout of pain. They had knocked over the side drawers in the hallway. Well that was rude of them. She paused moving again, trying to listen as closely as she could. She could hear her heart and her blood in her ears, but enough years of practice had taught her how to drown those out. Whoever it was wasn't doing a great job of quickly searching the rooms- "Hermione!" a familiar, desperate and pained voice called out to her.

She didn't move for three heartbeats. Then dashed madly for the door, still keeping low to the ground. She quickly looked around for any enemies, but it seemed Malfoy was alone. Her blood ran cold when she finally looked upon him. It looked like he had been tortured. Burned, stabbed, beaten and worse. It looked like clinging onto conciousness was taking immense effort. She had no idea how he had even managed to get here. He must have apparated. Holy shit, how did he manage to do that in his state?! Fresh burns covered half his body, half of his hair gone, down the side of his face, left eye gone, down his neck, and ending on his chest and stomach. Bits of muscle and bone were visible where the skin had come away. There were hundreds of miniature but deep cuts over the other half of his body and face and it seemed anywhere that hadn't been touched by the blades had been mercilessly beaten as swollen and bluish purple skin bloomed all over. The smell was putrid. She could feel her stomach churn. As she flung herself down next to him and tried to heave him up, he cried out again. She paused and using her wand, removed the blood that she had just noticed was littering the hallway, making it look like a muggle Hanted House attraction, and got it to circulate itself back into his body. Using the rudimentary healing skills she had to knit the skin together on his cuts but the burns, she nearly retched looking upon them again, the burns would take more serious magic. She grabbed his good wrist, the one that didn't look like it was broken, slung it over her shoulders and put her other arm around his torso to steady him from the other side. He didn't cry out this time, it was more of a strangled sob. It was the most terrifying thing she had ever heard. She nearly exclaimed in revulsion and disgust when she pulled him close. Where he her fingers were brushing against his burns it was almost as if the skin was disintegrating below them. It slid around and moved under her touch like a piece of tissue on a gel surface. She also realised with an extreme shudder she could suppress that she was feeling his broken ribs rub up against her own and make the most sickening vibration feeling.

Looking around and thinking quickly she decided to drag him toward the bathroom. It was the closest room to them and she supposed it would be easier to clean. After a lot of grunting and effort on her part, she had managed to sit him into the gargantuan bath. Hermione then proceeded to hobble out of the room, her back burning her with protest. She snatched her medical potions bag from beside her bed, burst back into the bathroom and vaulted into the bath next to him. His breathing was becoming shallower and more laboured with every passing minute at his watched her with his one sluggish eye rip bottles and vials out of the bad and start to frantically mix them together in the correct proportions. Her heart was in her throat and she felt so scared she could hardly breath herself. Why did he have to be the better of the two of them at potion making? Her hands were shaking almost violently and she silently wondered to herself why she was losing her cool so terribly. Looking back upon his form, she grabbed a fistful of the tatters of robes he wore and ripped them from his chest, leaving it bare for her to work. Glancing back up at his face she found that he was still looking at her with a half closed eye, but he didn't seem to be seeing her. He didn't seem to be seeing anything. He was still breathing... barely. But he was definitely unconscious. She threw a leg over his hips and straddled him without putting any weight on him, she put a hand on his cheek and turned his face toward hers. "Malfoy...?" She called. He did not stir. She lightly slapped the unburned side of his face. "Draco! C'mon, wake up. God damn it..." She yanked the cork from the bottle she'd been mixing and upended it over all of his burns. Thick heavy plumes of dark green noxious smoke rose from them and she coughed violently, eyes watering she used her sleeve to cover her mouth and nose. Looking back down at the burns, they had healed a little. God damn it, she hadn't mixed it correctly. If she'd had, they'd look a few days old by now and the smoke wouldn't have been so dark. She had to try again. She could feel panic rise in her chest as she shook and shook the mixture to combine it. She almost watched in slow motion as it slipped from her hand and smashed to pieces on the porcelain of the bath. She balled her fists up into her hair and nearly tore it out from the roots. "This is not the time to lose your _fucking_ composure!" She screamed at herself. Her body and mind were seizing and she could almost hear Malfoys life leaving him. She had smashed the bottle with the last of the primary ingredient she needed in it. She wasn't sure if or where Malfoy kept his potions. He was going to die and it was all her fault. He was going to die, just like she had let William die two years ago.

And somehow, in the midst of her panic, a memory came to her. _"Have you gone mad?!" Ron bellowed, as Devils Snare slowly suffocated himself and Harry. "Are you a witch or not?!"_


	12. Conversation

Hermione lifted herself off of Malfoy, sat back against he wall of the bath and allowed herself to breathe. She thanked the gods for magic. For the fact that she was a witch. If she had not been, he would have almost definitely succumbed to his wounds. She watched him now, as his breathing strengthened and his colour came back, bit by bit. If Harry and Ron had not helped her pull herself together through her memories and their shared experiences, she had the feeling she would have completely shut down.

It served as another reminder to her, how much she needed and loved them. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them. Over the last number of weeks she had spent with Malfoy she hadn't allowed herself to think on how much she really missed them. The memory of the three of them jumping through the trapped door in her first year only opened the flood gates to the numerous other memories she had with them and it made her inexplicably sad. She'd nearly broken when Ron had left them when they were on the run, but she'd grown since then and she had thought she was stronger. But this time she was without the two of them. This wasn't like their summers apart during school, she'd always known then she would be going back to them. Often times before the summer was over. But this time she knew she'd be apart from them for over a year. A year and half more like.

A year and half without the slightest bit of communication. A lot could happen in that time. Lives can change in seconds. And she was separated from the two most important people in her life for far longer than that.

She looked up to the ceiling as she tried to stop the tears falling from her eyes and let out a shaky sigh. Blinking them away, she looked back over at Malfoy. His eye was open. And was looking right at her. She tried her best to hide her shock. "Y-you're awake..." _Damn._

He didn't speak. Just nodded ever so slightly. That in itself seemed to have caused him pain. She kneeled closer to him and looked him over. She'd managed to reduce his cuts with her wand, used the potion to further heal his burns, bandaged them and set his bones in place until they healed into place and his bruises and swelling were almost gone by now. She had such immense respect for Madame Pomfrey in that moment. "Your burns are quite severe." She spoke to him quietly, while his one eye just burned into her. She felt very naked under that look. "I can have your hair grown back out by this time tomorrow and if I mixed the potion correctly, which I'm ninety-seven percent sure I did, you'll have little scarring. But... Malfoy..." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry but I don't know if there's anything I can do about getting your eye to grow back." He still just looked at her. Then slowly lifted his good arm to point at his throat.

"Your throat hurts?" He didn't shake his head, but instead waved his arm to signal 'no' and pointed at his throat again. "You can't speak." He didn't move his head. Just lowered his arm. "Yes, maybe not right now, but that should come back to you tomorrow too, when you're... better." His eye bored into her again for the longest time, making her feel extremely uncomfortable. She felt like she'd never been stared at so intensely in her life, let alone with just one eye. He raised his arm again and pointed to his empty eye socket. "I... I'm sure we'll figure something out about it Malfoy, I promise-" Frustrated, he waved his arm again to signal no, but a bit too vigorously this time. He winced and a wordless groan escaped him. Hermione all at once became aware of her surroundings again. She still had an extremely injured and weak Malfoy lying in a cold empty bath. Why? What was she thinking? When she attempted to stand, her legs and back cramped up and she lost her balance. She was forced to catch herself on the rim of the bath to avoid falling on top of him. Steadying herself and standing up straight, she tried not to feel the heat of his stare on her as she pulled out her wand, conjured a stretcher and carefully levitated him out of the bath and onto it. She didn't speak to him as she moved him out of the bathroom and tried not to look at his face as she lowered him into their bed. She quickly transfigured his remaining clothes into pyjamas and asked "Do you want some Sleeping Potion?" She knew she would want it if she were in his position. "I'm out of Valerian Sprigs though. Do you have any? I can get it ready in ten minutes." He didn't respond of course, but without taking his eye off of her, pointed to his bedside locker. She crouched down, with effort and opened the drawer he indicated to. Inside was a wealth of potions and potion ingredients all neatly categorized and labelled. She'd have loved to have had the opportunity to root properly and find exactly what she could make, his collection of ingredients vastly larger to hers, but now was probably not the best time for it. Finding what she needed, she sat herself down at the small vanity with her back to him and began to mix.

Again she felt the unmistakable feeling of his eyes looking into her, under her skin. She didn't know what it was, but she felt like they could penetrate into her. Well, maybe not 'they' plural, anymore. By the time she was finished mixing, she had goosebumps all over her back and arms and was trying very hard not to instinctualy shiver them away when she stood. Hermione paused in front of him, unsure exactly how she was going to feed the potion to him. He must have sensed it from her because without moving the ever present grey eye from her face, he snached the bottle with his good arm and downed it himself. Oh yes, his good arm, he still had a good arm, he wasn't completely helpless. Why did she contemplate how to feed it to him? Why did she think she would have to? What was wrong with her?

The lunacy seemed to be stuck to her like tree sap, though. She next attempted to break the tension with a line that would keep her up flaming with embarrassment at her own stupidity if it were not for the rest of the sleeping potion in the small pot on the vanity. "Un-uncomfortable, Malfoy?" She tried to sound suave and nonchalant. She really did. But it was a monumental failure. A big a failure as she had ever had in her life up until that point. His gaze did not waver in the slightest and she could feel the heat rising in her neck, the air around them grew thicker with awkwardness, at least on her end and she had already begun mentally abusing herself for saying one of the stupidest things she think she could have possibly said at that moment in time. _'Why did you say uncomfortable? Why would you do that? What has possessed you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Of course he is uncomfortable, half his skin is gone! He was on fire probably not too long ago. 'O' for Outstanding. Really, quite genius Hermione. Wonderful, you bloody idiot.'_

Moving away from him, she saw there was enough of the potion left over for another person. It was only ten in the morning. But she felt like she hadn't slept in weeks. She needed to forget the awkward conversation, needed to pass time until he awoke again to find out what happened, needed to heal her back and there was nothing better to do. So she filled a glass with some for herself and downed it, pretending it was a stiff drink of Firewhiskey and would take her awkwardness away forever. Turning back to Malfoy, she found his eye drooping and the empty eye socket, she couldn't see because of the bandage she had carefully placed over it. But he was still watching her. She could almost feel the want from him to talk. She hesitantly made her way to the closet to change, and could feel the sleep beginning to descend upon her. A feeling like soft fluffy clouds were filing her veins and her mind becoming comfortably fuzzy. Stumbling her way back toward the bed, she felt herself fall upon it with such force she bounced Malfoy, but he wouldn't feel it. He was gone from the world and Hermione happily and lazily pulled the covers around her and was thankful for the softness of the mattress, the thickness of the duvet and the warmth of the body next to her. Before she could think on it any more, she was asleep.

* * *

A pleasant buzz filled her head, as it always did whenever waking from a sleeping potion. Hermione cuddled closer into the bed, wishing she could stay here always and never have this comfort leave her. As she moved, she became aware of a breathing on her neck that she hadn't noticed before. Opening one bleary eye, it took a few seconds before the clouds left her vision, allowing herself to properly see what was in front of her. She felt her breath catch in her throat at how close they were. His mouth was only a few inches from her neck, his body turned into her side. They were not touching, but for one area, her left hand and his right. Their fingers just resting against each other. He was still asleep, lying on the side his burns had been on. They had healed well enough, the scarring was slightly more than she had originally thought, originally she had hoped they might just end up looking like a healing sun burn, but they looked like healed burns. Fully healed burns. The skin where the flames had licked him were slightly raised and wrinkled, pink and white over his ribs, his chest, his stomach and crawling up his neck. They wouldn't be visible with a high collared shirt, which was a mercy, she supposed. His hair had fully grown back now, but it was different. It was white. You wouldn't really be able to tell from a distance she thought, but up this close, she could see the stark snow white of hair on one side of his head which brought out the slight yellow of his blonde on the other. As she pulled her hand away and their skin brushed each other, she felt that familiar tingling sensation, like a bolt of lightning under her skin originated from his touch and her heart skipped. The touch disturbed him slightly, and she froze in her movements, trying not to disturb him more. Malfoy screwed up his face and made an unconscious protest noise, coming from the back of his throat. After a few seconds, he exhaled heavily out of his nose, as if he had been holding it and his face relaxed.

Painfully slowly, Hermione moved herself away from him and got herself up, trying not to dwell on the strange reactions her body was having to a male presence. After all, that was probably what it was. Just that she was female and he was male and there were hormones knocking around in her head, causing such reactions. It was only logical. And he was attractive. ' _Shut up._ ' she thought to herself shaking her head. She was standing in front of the mirror in their wardrobe again. Examining her own scars again. She ran her fingers over them. Bellatrix's Cruciatus scar, the cuts, the burns. Some old, some new. She touched the scar that looked like a lightning strike, it extending over her shoulder, her chest and her stomach, tracing it with her fingers, thinking about how angry and how hateful Bellatrix had to have been to have left a mark with a curse that was not supposed to mark. That would never leave her skin.

"I remember that night too."

Hermione dug her nails into her skin with surprise but did not turn around. She could see him through the reflection of the mirror, sitting up in bed. His voice was hoarse and raspy, as if he had not had something to drink in days. She tried not to dwell on how long he must have been watching her finger her scars. She didn't respond. And didn't move. She wasn't quite sure what to say to him in response. She just kept her two eyes on him through the mirror, and he did the same. What was she supposed to say? It wasn't his fault. He was trapped. All things he'd heard before, she was sure. She continued to trace her fingers over the bumps on her skin while watching him. She felt that he hadn't expected a response. His eye bore into her, again. It felt like he was probing under her skin and into her mind. She broke contact for just a second, turning around to look at him straight on.

"Did she ever scar you?" Hermione asked him as she made her way over, and began to remove the bandages on his side and arm that now served no purpose. She tried to not let her fingers linger on his skin. She really did. But she wasn't sure if he noticed. He had finally removed his eye from her face to watch what she was doing with her hands. "None that you can see." he replied, and it wasn't in the cold or harsh way she had expected and Hermione didn't know how to respond.

"She pulled out two of my teeth when you escaped the Manor. She knew I had recognised you. She seemed confused about why I had kept quiet."

"So she pulled out two of your teeth? Straight out? Just ripped them out of your head? With magic?" He nodded. "Two wisdom teeth at the back." His voice was becoming stronger with every word. His jaw brushed her fingers and Hermione had to swallow heavily for her next words to come out evenly. "If my parents were there, they would have gone on for two hours about proper dental procedures." She laughed lightly, imagining her mother and father lecturing Bellatrix Lestrange on the correct procedures for wisdom tooth removal. His eye was back on her face now.

"Your parents? Proper... what?"

She smiled and shook her head. "Two wisdom teeth. That must have hurt like hell. You know sometimes when removing them, they have to cut the tooth away from the jawbone? Sometimes they're fused." He looked at her like she had gone mad.

"...Yes, Granger. My mother fainted. All I can remember is it felt like she had pulled half of my jaw out of my skin and there was blood everywhere. Flowing out of my mouth, I thought I would drown in it." Their eyes met again.

"But you didn't."

"But I didn't."

Hermione's eyes drifted over to the bandage covering his empty eye socket and her hands hesitated. She felt his other eye on her again.

"Uncomfortable, Granger?"

She immediately felt her face go hopelessly red as she remembered saying the same thing to him last night. She just forced her hands to gently unwind the bandages and leave bare the sagging lid covering nothing but an empty socket while he smirked.

"It's not awful, Malfoy. I'm sure you'll still be the handsomest bachelor in all of wizarding society. Women will still be throwing themselves at you. Men too, probably."

"Think I'm handsome, Granger?" He was smirking at her again. Damn that smirk. Damn that smile. And damn that mouth. Why could he now, all of a sudden, make her say stupid things, make her think stupider things. She hated that mouth. It was making her flustered. She would not let him see it. She'd play defensive if she had to, she just hoped she wouldn't regret it too much afterward.


	13. Revalation

"What did you mean?" Malfoy asked suddenly. Hermione looked at him from across the bed. He was fully healed now. He had told her a few hours ago he would be able to grow his eye back. She had been immensely surprised, but it turned out that's what he was referring to when he was pointing at his eye when he couldn't talk. He had been sitting over the cauldron in their room for an hour and a half in silence, occasionally muttering strange spells she'd never heard before.

"What did I mean?" She responded, confused. She put her book down.

He nodded. "What did you mean when you were talking about your parents and teeth. Why would they lecture Bellatrix on teeth of all things?" He asked the question as if it was the strangest thing he'd ever had to ask.

"Oh." She let out a short laugh. "My parents were dentists." He turned away from the cauldron and looked at her quizzically.

"Dentists? What the bloody hell are dentists?"

"A dentist is a Muggle profession. Quite a respected one too. They care for people's teeth. It's how they met." She didn't know why she had told him that.

"Care for people's teeth? Do Muggles not have medicines or something to do that for them?"

"Honestly, Malfoy there's no need to repeat everything I say. Yes, Muggles have some medicines and things that they use to care for their teeth, but they're not quite as lucky as Wizards. Some issues need manual intervention."

"Manual intervention-" He stopped short as he repeated her words back at her again, but still looked horrified at the very idea. "Surely you don't mean they put their hands in your mouth?" He asked as he turned back to his cauldron.

"Yes, that's the general idea. They need to go in through the mouth to do all sorts of procedures. Fillings, removals all those kinds of things." A memory came to her mind suddenly of her first ever dinner feast at Hogwarts and all the sugary and salty foods she had eaten without guilt, telling herself she would never inform her parents of it.

"Disgusting." Malfoy muttered to himself as he began working over the cauldron again. Silence fell between them for another few minutes. Hermione had just begun to get back into her book when Malfoy spoke again.

"Were." he said.

"Sorry?" She asked confused.

"You said your parents _were_ dentists. Are they not anymore?" He didn't turn to look at her. Hermione felt her heart drop. One slip of the tongue and she had revealed more to him than she ever had intended to.

"No." She responded, bristling. "No they are not." She picked up her book again and used it to hide her face in, hoping he would drop it, but she never seemed to get her way with him.

"What do they do now, then? Did someone bite their finger off?" She could hear him smirk. And now a question was posed to her in her mind. Would she wipe the smirk off of his face with the ugly and brutal truth, or just try to get him to drop it? The ugly truth would give her some kind of sick vindictive pleasure over making him feel uncomfortable, it was horrible and she knew it was. Perhaps the best route was to just get him to drop it.

"It's not important what they do now. Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to read my book." She unconsciously brought her knees up to her chest and hid herself behind the book again.

She heard him turn to face her fully and got the feeling he wouldn't let it go. "Well, it seems like the kind of thing that would be important to you, Granger, why won't you tell me? Is it something embarrassing? Did they actually get their fingers bit off?"

"No, they didn't get their fingers bit off, Malfoy. Why are you so interested?" She could feel anger and dread fill her veins.

"I'm curious, is that a crime? Why won't you tell me what they do now? Why is it such an issue?"

"It's an issue because I don't want to talk about it okay? I just don't. And besides, I don't even really know what they do at the momen-"

"You don't know?" ' _Shit.'_ "How could you not know what your parents do as a profession, Granger? Do you not write each other, do you not visit?"

Hermione slammed her book shut. "No, Malfoy. No I do not. I don't write to them, I don't visit them. They don't write to me and they don't visit me because they don't know who the fuck I am, alright?" She forced her way out of the tangle of sheets and made to stomp out of the room, just wanting to be left alone, but Malfoy apparently wasn't having any of it. He shot up from his seat with surprising speed and blocked the doorway into the hall. "Get the fuck out of my way, Malfoy." She eyed him dangerously, searching her pocket for her wand, only to realise she left it under her pillow.

"No, Granger. Tell me what you mean." He placed his arm across the rest of the doorway his body wasn't covering. Hermione attempted to shove past him, but he held firm and wouldn't be moved. "Get out of my way." She could feel her emotions rising in her chest but she would rather break her arm than cry in front of him. She might break his.

Hermione couldn't bring herself to look at his face she just stared at a fixed point on his chest, at eye level.

"No, tell me. Are they- are they dead. I- Fuck, are they like Longbottom's parents?"

"Oh Jesus fucking Christ," She said exasperated, reverting to Muggle swears in her rage. "No, Malfoy! They're not! Now get out of my goddamned WAY!" She shouted the last word at him, swinging her fist back and punching him in the arm, right in that sensitive area between the bicep and tricep. He pulled his arm back from the force and the pain and stumbled as she brutally shoved her way past him.

Hermione only had a second to think of the safest room to go to. He could follow her into the dining room, and the study had a second door leading off of it. With the decision made for her, she stomped her way quickly to the bathroom, hoping to make her way in before he had fully recovered. Her fingers just brushed the door handle when she felt a hand close about her wrist, yank her back from the door and hold fast. He held her wrist firmly, and Hermione couldn't look at him. "Let me go." She could feel her emotions bubble up in her throat and her voice came out low and shaky. She cursed herself internally for it and swallowed hard trying to force them down.

"Tell me, Granger. What happened to them?" his own voice steady.

Hermione's free hand still had her book in it, she she tried to use it to her advantage and swung the improvised weapon at his head. He was calmer than she was, though and caught her other wrist before it made contact. The book flew from her grasp, hitting the wall and landing open and face down on the floor. Malfoy now held her wrists crossed in front of him and Hermione was aware her distress and anger were showing plain on her face. She looked up at his face, blurry due to the tears threatening to fall and mentally kicked herself again. She was so angry and so upset she forgot that she knew exactly six different techniques to get out of that kind of grip and instead resorted to trying pull away from him, but he was barely moved.

"Tell me." His voice was deep and calm. She continued to try and pull away, even resorting to putting her foot against his thigh to gain leverage, but it was no use. She felt her emotions overtake her and she sank to her knees. "They don't know who I am." She repeated. Malfoy released her wrists as she pressed her back against the wall, ugly gasping sobs coming from her. He lowered himself to sit beside her, but did not touch her.

"Why?"

"Why do you want to know?" she shot at him, angrily wiping at her nose and eyes with her arm.

"I just do."

She gave a humourless bark of a laughter and sighed. "I obliviated them."

Malfoy's head snapped to the side to look at her. "You did what? Why would you do that? How could you do that? To your own parents?"

She was getting angry again. "Think about it Malfoy. I want you to think really hard, if your capable. We were at the beginning of a war. A war in which I and my parents were barely human beings. I was not going to risk their lives just because it was a hard thing to do. I obliviated them. I sent them to Australia. They are still there, living happily together, unaware of everything. Exactly as I wanted. If the Death Eaters had found the parents of the most famous Mudblood in all of Great Britain, companion to Harry Potter and signal of hope to all the other Mudbloods out there, what exactly do you think would have happened to them?"

Malfoy didn't answer, so she continued on. "Exactly. So I removed myself from everything. They never had a daughter. So don't you dare ask me 'How could I have done it, to my own parents?' I had been considering this as a possibility since the end of fourth year, when Harry made it out of the Triwizard Tournament and Cedric didn't. I knew then that if all that was going to kick off, I would have to keep them safe. So don't you dare judge me, Malfoy."

They sat in silence for the longest time after that. Neither quite sure what to say to the other. Hermione was trying to get her emotions back in check, calming the spasms in her chest and trying to stop from crying any more. She rested her arms on her knees and lay her head on them, facing away from him. She didn't know why he hadn't left her side yet. After a few minutes of calming slow breaths and subsiding tears she lifted her head from her arms and looked toward their bedroom door. There she saw dark green smoke billowing from the cauldron.

"Malfoy." She called, as the pulled threads from the carpet. He only hummed in response. "Your potion."

His head immediately snapped up and he launched himself to his feet, bursting back into the bedroom and frantically waving his wand. Hermione watched him from the hallway for a few minutes, wondering if his quest to get his eye back had now failed. She was surprised to find she sincerely hoped it wasn't. And not because he would then become a liability on the mission, but because she seemed to-. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thoughts before they could form. She wanted to help, but knew she couldn't. She didn't know what he was doing or what spells or ingredients were needed. And magic as complicated as this needed someone who knew what they were doing. Otherwise the whole thing could be ruined. She glanced back at him one more time before standing and making her way into the bathroom she had desperately longed to get to earlier on. Locking the door behind her she thought the best way to relax after revealing one of her secrets to what had once been one of her worst enemies was a luxurious bath. After fiddling with the taps for a few minutes, she managed to get the water to a sweet smell and a light shade of blue.

As she relaxed in the hot water she found herself thinking back on the events of the last few days. They had followed an enemy and she had engaged him in a duel. His suit had seemed to be enchanted with some kind of repelling charm. Hermione had heard of enchanting your clothes before but had never seen it be so effective. Usually agents carried enchanted cloaks, but the most they could do was cause a Petrificus Totalus spell to wear off a little quicker or avoid a Jelly Legs Jinx or Tickling Hex. She had never seen a spell _absorbed_ into an item of clothing before and she had hit him with a powerful stunning spell. She made a mental note to research it and use it to her advantage if she ever found out about it. And then there was the issue with Malfoy and his treatment of her afterward. She hate to admit it to herself, but it was justified. She thought about what she would have done had her partner initiated a duel with an enemy with no warning. She knew herself that she would have torn them to shreds, so for Malfoy to get her back to the suite, probably spend hours healing her and getting rid of that spell that attached to her spine and then _not_ acting the arsehole when she woke up only became more surprising to her.

And then. And then he had come back to the suite looking like a man half dead after being missing for god knows how long. Hermione then came to the realisation that she still didn't know what had happened to him that night, and where he had been. She sat upright very suddenly, upsetting the water and sending some of it cascading to the floor. How could she not have thought to ask? It was vitally important information to the mission. He could have been followed. He could have been tampered with. What if he was under the Imperius Curse? What if it was someone in Polyjuice guise? How could she have let such a possible liability pass her by? She felt her skin rub and squeak against the porcelain as she hastily exited the bath. She was about to use her wand to vanish the water in the bath, but just then remembered she had left it under her pillow in the bedroom. She hurriedly wrapped a towel around her, holding it to her chest. She felt goosebumps cover her skin as the cold air surrounded her and her wet hair plastered itself to her shoulders and neck. She opened the bathroom door a crack and looked through. She couldn't see him. Their bedroom door was still open, and the cauldron was no longer smoking but a stench filled her nostrils. She wasn't quite sure what it was, but it smelled faintly of burning plastic and new plastic at the same time, it was strange and unpleasant. Creeping along the hallway, dripping water behind her she peeked around the door of the bedroom. She couldn't see him, he wasn't in here. Where the hell had he gone? The door creaked ever so slightly as she brushed it, and she ran and jumped for her side of the bed. The creaking noise could have alerted him and she would not be left unarmed. Snatching her wand from under her pillows, she whipped around and her eyes met his as he stood in the doorway of the wardrobe.

"Granger, what are you doing?" He asked looking like he thought she'd gone mad as she brandished her wand at him. His eyes moved down to her shoulder and chest. When she had made her dive she had forgotten she was only wearing a towel and now it was only barely covering her nipples and her whole back was exposed. She felt a blush grow warm in her cheeks, but refused to acknowledge it. "You're soaking the bed." He observed.

"Why did I slap you in third year?" she panted, keeping her wand trained on him.

"Really, Granger you're doing this now?" He raised his eyebrow.

"Answer the question." she felt a cold water droplet slither down her back and she resisted the urge to shudder.

"I got back here nearly twenty-four hours ago and you're asking security questions _now_?" He was attempting to appear nonchalant, but she could see his eyes following different water droplets as they caressed her body and fell onto her towel or onto the sheets below her. His gaze was setting her skin aflame, but she pushed the thoughts away and growled out again, "Answer the question."

Malfoy crossed his arms and looked her in the eye again. "I was making fun of Hagrid, weeping over that bloody Hippogriff. Whatever his name was. Bluebeak or something. Put your wand down, Granger."

She was still not fully convinced. "What fell?" She asked him sharply when he moved toward his cauldron and he snorted. "You're going to need to be a bit more specific than that, Granger." He waved his own wand vanishing the contents of the cauldron.

"What fell in Gibraltar? What nearly compromised the mission?" She did not move her wand away from him, not even when her movements caused the towel to fall a bit more.

"A v- a vase, Granger." He stuttered as he turned back to her, his eyes falling to her exposed breast but he tried to cover his blunder up quickly. She eyed him suspiciously before lowering her wand and pulling the towel back up to cover herself again.

"Lucky for you, Granger, I managed to get my eye back. So you don't have to look at some poor one eyed sod any more."

Hermione looked at him again, though properly this time. It was true. He had both eyes again, and both seemed to be working as well as the other, but she noticed there was something different about the new one. It's colour was a little darker than his other one, making it a slate grey rather than the storm grey it had been. It was also _clearer_ in a sense. Like the iris was almost see through, but not. It made Hermione think of a clear pond she could see straight down to the bottom of. In comparison, his old lighter coloured eye looked almost cloudy and unfocused. It was slightly unsettling.

"Does it work okay?"

He nodded. "It works fine. It should look the exact same as my other, but I was a bit... delayed getting back to it." He was eyeing her again. It made her feel both uncomfortable and bold at the same time. Turning her back on him as he began to exit the room, she walked toward the wardrobe and dropped the towel just before she left his line of sight. As she turned the corner she heard him collide with something and surmised he had kicked the chair on his way out. She audibly snorted.

"Oh fuck off." She heard him call out to her.

"Go suck a dick, Malfoy." She called back teasingly.

"Only if it's your dick, Granger." He replied.


	14. Plans

Hermione was thrown up into the air and landed hard the grass. The wind was knocked from her and she struggled to inhale as she was sent sky-rocketing again to an impossible height and left hanging limply there, the cold wind cutting her skin. She opened her mouth wide to let out a scream that went unheard. Below her, a familiar cackle echoed. She felt her heart stop as it reached her ears and she plummeted again for an unnatural amount of time. When she hit the ground, she felt all of her bones break simultaneously. Opening her eyes, grimacing, she looked up and saw Bellatrix Lestrange, standing in front of the free-standing fireplace of Malfoy Manor, surrounded by a vast never ending field. "No," Hermione whispered. "You're dead." Her eyes shifted and she saw Draco Malfoy behind Bellatrix, his back to her as it had been all those years ago. Bellatrix cackled again and pointed her wand at Hermione. Wave after wave of unbearable pain swept through her and she screamed. She screamed until she felt her vocal chords had torn apart. Through the sound of her own screams deafening her ears and Bellatrix's incessant cackling, she heard Malfoys voice whisper toward her "Granger."

A fresh smack of pain forced its way through her, setting her very skin ablaze, but she heard his voice again, a little louder this time. "Granger." With a lot of effort, Hermione managed to look up at him as he turned from his usual position toward her. She didn't know how he had managed to call her name, though. He didn't have a face. The curse hit her again as she heard his shout; "Granger!"

She felt her body hit softness, two hands on her arms and the pain suddenly ebb away. Still in a panic she raised a fist to strike the person holding her, they caught her wrist and pinned it next to her head so she attempted the same tactic with her other hand, but only to the same result. With both wrists pinned she attempted to kick out with her legs but quickly found a body straddling her own, effectively strapping her down. She took in another shuddering breath as he shouted her name once more and she remembered. She stared up with her wide brown eyes at his figure looming over her, the ceiling of their suite behind him and she stopped struggling against him and allowed her muscles to relax. Almost immediately she realised his body was pressed up flush against her own, every heave of her chest pushing her up against him, his hips placing a pleasant weight over hers and his breath soft against her face. She felt her rapid heartbeat accentuated under him.

"You're okay. Alright? You're fine. You just had a... bad dream." She was unable to reply, her voice seemed to be caught in her throat, so she just nodded. Malfoy released her wrists, placed his hands on either side of her head and rolled off of her. She hadn't had to be restrained like that because of a nightmare in over a year, that she knew of, remembering the previous instance she had nearly broken Ron's nose before he could get a firm grip over her. Hermione felt embarrassment and shame wash over her as if she had just jumped into the deep end of a cold pool. She lay on her side, curled up in a ball, the cold air of the room pricking her skin, mentally kicking herself for her nightmare. She could never really remember exactly what happened in that nightmare. It was always light trying to read a sign from far away. But she did remember his face. Or lack of face. Why hadn't he had one? Maybe because she'd never seen his face when it had happened. She glanced over in his direction as she pulled the duvet up over herself and she saw he had his back turned to her, shoulders exposed and hair spread across the pillow behind him. Rolling away from him she thought she would love nothing more than to curl up under the covers and never have to speak to him again. But their plans for tomorrow had other ideas.

* * *

She stared Malfoy dead in the eye as he faced against her, both crouched, ready to attack or defend. They had temporarily converted their study into a sparring ground as it had been weeks on top of weeks since they had last sparred with any partner and they were both getting bored and rusty.

They began to circle each other, and Hermione had to think would he assume he would be able to fight her easily because she was a woman? She wouldn't put anything past him, but in this case she honestly couldn't tell. He was making no move toward her, he seemed to just be sizing her up and she was getting impatient.

In a flash of sudden movement she was be his side and attempted to kick his knees out from under him, but he was far quicker than she had expected and jumped back out of the way, swinging his leg around. She blocked the blow with her arm, just barely stopping his heel from colliding with her nose. In retaliation he grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him. Spinning her, Malfoy wrapped one arm around her neck and held her wrist firm with the other. She could feel his breath whispering in her ear and his chest heaving against her back. "Did I tell you that I learned some information while I was being brutally tortured a while back?" As she struggled against him, slowly losing more air, he only tightened his grip. With her spare arm, the one she had been using to try to pry his hand away, she swung her elbow down and hit him hard in the ribs, forcing him to loosen his grip and allowing her to slip out of his grasp. Kicking him to the ground, she put all her weight on top of him, straddling him and placing her hands on his shoulders. "No." She panted. "It's a bit rude of you to leave out some crucial information." She watched him below her, trying to catch his breath as well. He was looking at her in a way that made her feel slightly uncomfortable. Or at least she told herself that.

In her moment of distraction, he took the chance, rocking his hips in a sudden and ferocious movement he bucked her off of him and she landed hard on her side. Before she could move she felt two hands on her arm, yanking her to her feet. Swinging with her other, she managed to land a blow on the side of his face. He brutally shoved her up against the wall and pressed her there. Against her will she felt her breath shudder and her heart pick up pace. She saw his pupils dilate and his pulse quicken through the vein in his neck and took some satisfaction in that. "Do you remember Emmerich? That wizard you tried to fight." Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and covered his teeth as he spoke. "And lost to." As he said this he pressed himself up against her more firmly and she felt her will to fight back diminish by the second. As soon as she had come to the realisation that she had thought this she violently pushed back against him and he fell away from her. She swung madly at him attempting to land another blow , but she was blocked at every turn. "Are you actually going to give me any information or will you continue to toy with me?" Hermione said with effort, as he glanced her blows away from him. He replied so instantaneously she thought he definitely didn't think before "I do enjoy toying with you."

He made the same mistake she had earlier. There was just a moment of pause where his guard was not up after he heard himself and she capitalized on the opportunity. She gave a strong kick into his stomach and sent him sprawling to the floor. The both of them were panting with exertion. "Concede?" she breathed as she leaned over him. He looked up at her again with that look that made her heart flutter. Like lightning he kicked her own legs out from under her and she landed hard next to him. Their eyes met and she only then realised how close they were and felt a sudden and intense want to get even closer. He smirked and she just about lost all of her willpower. "Yeah, I concede." He turned to look up at the ceiling but didn't get up. She didn't move either and silence fell between them. She wasn't sure it was actually happening or if she was imagining it, but it felt to her like the silence was getting more and more awkward.

"Emmerich was there." Malfoy spoke up, taking Hermione off guard. "Emmerich was where?"

"He was with me that night. He was one of the men who'd captured me."

"Oh." She paused. "Are you going to tell me what happened, this time, or continue to tease information?" Hermione could have sworn she saw the response in his head, but he seemed to think better of it and simply said "All right then." Her heart almost paused beating as he turned toward her and propped himself up on his elbow, almost leaning over her. Looking him dead in the eye she tried her best to not let it show that she was currently warring with herself in her head. On the one had she thought that ever since she had promised herself she was changing her attitude, she would go out and get what she wants. However, it seemed that what she currently wanted (or at least her hormones did) was Malfoy and that made her very uncomfortable. Not only because he was her worst enemy for years, he was an arrogant asshole (though she was sure she had entered into that territory too), but she felt like it would also be a betrayal to herself if she were to pursue it in any way. Not to mention if her advances were not reciprocated, then it put the mission in jeopardy. But she was almost sure he would reciprocate. She stared up into his mismatched eyes with what she had hoped was a look of vague interest.

"Well, after you had decided to go out and nearly get us both killed-" Hermione made an affronted sound. "Which you did. I needed to go out and let off a little steam. I couldn't very well duel an injured witch now could I?"

"You would have lost."

"Sure. Okay." Malfoy said with a patronizing tone of voice that made her want to headbutt him in his teeth. "I went back to the spot where you engaged Emmerich to see if I could find anything to go on, where he might have gone, where we might find more information, you know? That kind of thing." He wasn't looking at her face any more, his eyes were wandering around the room as he spoke, the hand that wasn't propping his head up was resting across his stomach and barely brushing her arm. Every so often she felt it twitch and if she were honest with herself she had no idea what to make of it.

"Lost your train of thought?" she asked and he looked down at her again. She grew more and more terrified of what might happen as he didn't speak for a few seconds, just continued to stare. But then "They came back. I don't think I did quite the good job I thought I had on his memory. He seemed to remember something had happened there. Like when you're sure something bad happened in a dream but you're not quite sure what. At the point they turned up, I was a little distracted and they surprised me, incapacitated me and apparated me away. I don't really think I need to go into details about what happened to me when they took me there, but I put up a bit of a fight, got away for all of a few seconds and sent out a weak Patronus. I doubt it even made it's way to you."

Hermione shook her head. She didn't trust herself to speak as she had spent the last few minutes watching his jaw and neck move as he spoke.

"Well, long story short, they remember nothing again, and I do. I also have some information on what our next move could be. It seems that the top Pureblood families are the ones in the top circle of this operation, and more than likely we'll be able to extract some of the slaves when we go there."

"Have you formulated a plan and everything without me?" She attempted to sound hurt but it came out very insincere. He looked down at her again and the types of thoughts that ran through her head at that moment made her want to slap herself. "Plus I doubt that even you could have missed the glaring issue in this new development."

"Even me? You wound me Granger." He smirked. She lost just a little more of herself. Swallowing, she continued on, "I am Hermione Granger, the most famous Muggle-Born in all of Britain. You are Draco Malfoy, on the Sacred Twenty-Eight list. Even our Glamours can't help us against those wards. We'd be known immediately. And if we're not know immediately, we'd be found out very quickly."

"Yes. I am. And yes you are. But as you have just mentioned, I am Draco Malfoy on that bloody Sacred Twenty-Eight list, which means I know how to get around them, I know how they work and I know how to break them." Their noses were almost touching. When had that happened? In a panic Hermione rolled away, shot to her feet and was out of the door like a lightning flash.

"Don't tell me I made you uncomfortable, Granger?" She heard him laugh from the room behind her. God damn it, Malfoy would be the death of her.


End file.
